Richard A. Hagopian
Richard Hagopian (born 1937) is an American Oriental-style oud player, and a well-known world music and traditional Armenian musician from the small town of Fowler near Fresno, California.
He has been a musician since childhood, learning to play the violin and clarinet at only nine years old. He started playing the oud at age of 12. At first he was self taught then by invitation studied Eastern (Ottoman Classical) music theory and oud under the internationally famous Armenian artist Kanouni Garbis Bakirgian. He was directed to study under Kanouni Garbis by the famous Udi Hrant Kenkulian, when Udi Hrant was playing a concert in Fresno and met the young Richard and his parents. Udi Hrant also gave Hagopian lessons by correspondence.
Hagopian gained fame in the 1960s and 70s with the Kef Time Band. According to the liner notes of the 1967 LP Kef Time Las Vegas, the Kef Time Band was formed originally as the band for a Las Vegas show called the Cleopatra Revue, which ran at the Flamingo Hotel from 1963-1967. During this time the leader of the Cleopatra Revue band, Armenian-American dumbeg player Buddy Sarkissian, met Hagopian and immediately hired him after hearing him play the oud and sing. This was the beginning of the Kef Time Band's career; they would go on to become the most famous band playing the "kef" style of dance music popular among the Armenian-American community.
Hagopian has performed throughout the United States and taught a master class at the Manhattan School of Music, as well as teaching as artist-in-residence at California State University. He currently claims to play over 50 instruments.
He is also one of the few musicians who have received the title of Udi or oud master (receiving his title from Udi Hrant).
His son is the violinist Harold Hagopian, also a music producer who runs the small independent label Traditional Crossroads.
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