About us

Komitas Museum-Institute is dedicated to the development of Komitas studies, as well as to the research and promotion of Komitas’s creative heritage. Komitas Museum-Institute was inaugurated on January 29, 2015.

The museum is located in the area adjacent to Komitas Park in Yerevan. It was built on the foundations of the former Palace of Culture, designed in 1949 by architect Koryun Hakobyan. The architect of the newly created building is Artur Meschian. The author and curator of the permanent exhibition is Vardan Karapetyan, and the exhibition designer is Alberto Torsello. The project was implemented by the Armenian National Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM). Financial support was provided by the “Pyunik” Pan-Armenian Foundation for Human Resources Development and the “Luys” Foundation.

The Museum-Institute includes a concert hall, a permanent exhibition, and facilities for temporary exhibitions. Within the institution operate a research center, a library, and a publishing unit. For the organization of the exhibition, museum objects were transferred from the collections of the Yeghishe Charents Museum of Literature and Art, the National Gallery of Armenia, and the National Library of Armenia. The temporary exhibition hall regularly hosts exhibitions related to various fields of art, including music, photography, painting, graphics, and decorative and applied arts. The Research Center operating within the Komitas Museum-Institute aims to conduct comprehensive and systematic research into Komitas’s life and work, as well as archival materials related to him. Special emphasis is placed on the study of the historical and theoretical issues of various branches of Armenian folk and sacred music, in accordance with Komitas’s scholarly principles. The Komitas Museum-Institute publishes scholarly works, exhibition catalogues of displays organized in the temporary exhibition hall, sheet music, and collections of research articles. Since 2017, the Komitas Museum-Institute has housed a Music Library (formerly operating as an independent institution under the name Musicological Library). The library holds a wide range of sheet music and specialized music literature, as well as numerous recordings of Armenian and world music.

In 2023, based on a nomination submitted by the Komitas Museum-Institute, and by the unanimous decision of UNESCO’s Executive Board, the collection of works by Komitas Vardapet was inscribed on the International Register of the Memory of the World Programme.