PLEASE BE AWARE OF QUESTIONABLE ALAN HOVHANESS WEB PAGES.
Alan Hovhaness Wikipedia Page: Much unreliable and/or opinionated on this page. Attempts to render corrections have been met with attacks by the posters of the questionable information. An untrustworthy site not suitable for serious scholarship or research.
As the Alan Hovhaness 2011 Centennial approaches, various local individuals have attempted to portray themselves as Official or Main Alan Hovhaness internet sites.
Two questionable blogs which appear to be working in tandem include "Hovhaness dot com" authored by a Mr. Marco Shirodkar, (lately a self-appointed "curator") and "Hovhaness Centennial Committee" under the URLs "hovhanesscentennial dot com, hovhanesscentennial dot org, hovhanesscommittee dot com, and hovhanesscommittee dot org," all authored by a Mr. Laurence O. McKinney. Neither of these individuals are connected with or recognised by the genuine Alan Hovhaness Commemorative Committee of Arlington, Massachusetts. Neither of these individuals, though they appear to be presenting themselves as Hovhaness experts, have worked with Alan Hovhaness nor were they well-acquainted with him (or even at all?) throughout the years of the great composer's life. Neither are known to be professionally published composers nor to have professionally performed any Hovhaness work on any musical instrument. One wonders about these two individuals, perhaps that they live in fantasies wishing to be seen in the spotlight of Alan Hovhaness' accomplishments and accolades without having achieved anything of musical significance themselves?
Mr. Shirodkar, under the cover of his "Alan Hovhaness website" has been known to jealously guard "his" materials, many of which were freely and in good faith donated without charge by the Alan Hovhaness International Research Centre (which financed and directed the research to obtain these materials,) in the expectation of free public availability, claiming "violation of copyright" for these same materials which were never his ownership nor products of his own efforts.
One of the Alan Hovhaness Centre's research sources informed us that without our knowledge, Mr. Shirodkar had told her to send our materials directly to him, possibly giving the impression that he was our representative. It was only after her writing us that we discovered what had taken place. In this one case we were fortunate to receive a second copy of the recording which she and her colleagues had specially prepared for the Hovhaness Centre. We have no idea, though, how much other Hovhaness material has been misdirected to Mr. Shirodkar's private collection; unavailable to scholars, researchers, students, and music lovers. Perhaps we will never be able to uncover the full extent of these deceptions.
Concerned musicians and scholars as well as many in the immediate Alan Hovhaness community, residents of his home town of Arlington, Massachusetts, and those who personally knew Alan Hovhaness, have brought to our attention their strong feelings that these above pages contain misinformation, falsehoods, and fabrications; that their authors delete or misrepresent vital facts and eliminate key professional musicians who did know and did in fact work with Alan Hovhaness over a period of years, from events in which they played a vital and substantive role. They felt that the authors of these pages-who were not in attendance to represent or verify themselves at the events about which they "reported" and who as non-participants, did not contribute in any manner at all to the planning, development, funding, or the success of these events, were dishonest, deceitful, and were acting with self-serving, opportunistic, malicious, spiteful, and mean-spirited intentions.
The Alan Hovhaness International Research Centre in Yerevan can only recommend that music lovers and scholars review ALL available reliable, substantiated, documented, professional materials from easily available sources (such as the Hovhaness Centre itself,) before drawing any conclusions, for example, as in the development of scholarly research; or before taking any action such as the donation of their own Hovhaness materials; or before contributing any monies to any questionable internet sites such as those authored by the aforementioned individuals.
