To my fellow faithful in Christ, this will be my second to last message to you as Chairman, and I wish to continue to deliver my most personal messages to you for the limited amount of time that we continue to share together.

This labour day weekend, I just surpassed 15,000 miles within my AACCWD travels, and I simply have one request from you. I wish to beseech you to wholeheartedly take care of our precious sacred music. I pray for you to be enveloped with mind, body, and soul, and share your love with your fellow friends, church members, and entire family. If we each exude even a small portion of our penchant love for our sacred music, we can bring harmony to the walls of our sanctuaries across the Diocese. 

As time fleetingly gives way to the coming days and weeks, I am continuing to work on my commitments as your elected representative for this Diocese. Very shortly, the remaining musical engravings of the Sunrise Service Music will be published on our website, accompanied with corresponding vocal and organ parts. This project has been disseminated internationally and will be fully available for your use in the 2020 calendar year by all Diocesan parishes. Our 2019-2020 Christian Education Council partnership is stronger and further refined as we strive to deliver the best music education to each and every Sunday School student across our vast Diocese. Our 2019 Convention is underway where we will celebrate the past four years, receive education and training through workshops and presentations, and most importantly, come together to celebrate our love for sacred music under one house.

As November slowly approaches, I ask of you to not only disseminate information related to our AACCWD Convention but heed my urgent call for succession planning. Take a look around your parish and understand that in order to preserve the things that we cherish most, we must actively take a role in continuing our traditions, passing down our knowledge, training our young voices, allowing for new musicianship, and supporting them till they are ready to serve our Diocese and our Armenian Apostolic Church. We are the writers of our own history and we must ensure that the narrative we pen remembers our actions favourably. 

I look forward to seeing all of you at Saint Peter Armenian Apostolic Church November 8-10 as we celebrate the sacred music of our Armenian Apostolic Church through lectures, presentations, and workshops. Please visit our website www.aaccwd.com or speak with your parish priest or AACCWD representative for any questions pertaining to our 2019 Convention & Assembly. 

For those who may be interested in attending the Eastern Diocese’s Sacred Music Festival October 4-6 in Evanston, Illinois, please visit www.armenianchurch.us to purchase tickets and research further information. It would be wonderful to see our Diocesan faithful across America come together to celebrate the rich and harmonious music of our Armenian Apostolic Church. 

Sevag Derderian