The Naghash Ensemble's North American run hits San Antonio tonight, then six more cities

John Hodian's Armenian ensemble, setting 15th-century poems of exile for voices, duduk, oud, dhol and piano, plays nine On at 8 markets in under three weeks.

Tonight in San Antonio, three women's voices, a duduk, an oud, a dhol and a piano will take on poems written by an Armenian priest in exile more than five centuries ago. It is the middle of a North American run by The Naghash Ensemble, and over the next two weeks it reaches six more On at 8 markets.

The Naghash Ensemble plays Stable Hall in San Antonio tonight, Sunday, Nov. 8, at 7 p.m., as part of the Russell Hill Rogers Musical Evenings series presented by Musical Bridges. The tour has already been through Salisbury State University on the Eastern Shore on Nov. 4 and Universal Preservation Hall in Saratoga Springs on Nov. 5, where it was part of the Proctors Passport Series.

From here the tour heads to Shenandoah University in Winchester, Va., on Tuesday, Nov. 10 at 7 p.m.; Camp Concert Hall at Booker Hall of Music at the University of Richmond on Friday, Nov. 13 at 6:30 p.m.; Kalamazoo College in Michigan on Sunday, Nov. 15 at 7 p.m.; Town Hall in Seattle on Tuesday, Nov. 17 at 7 p.m.; the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills on Wednesday, Nov. 18 at 7:30 p.m.; and The Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center in San Diego on Sunday, Nov. 22 at 3 p.m.

That is nine dates in nine of our markets inside three weeks, mostly in university halls and performing-arts centers, which tells you how this music travels: as a listening concert, in rooms built for acoustic sound.

The music starts with a text. The ensemble is built around Armenian-American composer and pianist John Hodian, who sets the poetry of Mkrtich Naghash, a 15th-century Armenian priest who wrote while living in exile. The material deals with a monk forced to live away from home for many years and with the loss of a son in battle. The project's own origin story begins with a voice: Hodian first heard soprano Hasmik Baghdasaryan singing at the Garni temple outside Yerevan, then went looking through archives for a text worth setting and found a fragment by Naghash.

Fifteenth-century poems of exile, set for duduk, oud, dhol, piano and three voices, in nine cities across three weeks.

The sound is hard to file, and Hodian has said he is wary of labels. Presenters have described it as a blend of the earthy spirituality of Armenian folk song, new classical music and post-minimalism, with the energy of rock and jazz. The usual lineup sets three female singers against duduk, oud, dhol and piano, with core players including Harutyun Chkolyan on duduk, Aram Nikoghosyan on oud and Tigran Hovhannisyan on dhol. The first recording, Songs of Exile, came out in 2014.

This is not the ensemble's first time in the U.S. Its 2023 and 2025 tours included Carnegie Hall in New York, Strathmore in Washington, D.C., and SFJAZZ in San Francisco, and the 2025 run marked the group's 10th anniversary. The 2026 tour is the follow-up, and this time much of it runs through college and civic halls.

Which rooms to watch? Of the rooms we have capacities for, San Antonio's Stable Hall holds about 1,000 and Seattle's Town Hall about 832. The San Diego date is a Sunday matinee at 3 p.m., the easiest one to make with family. And the campus dates in Winchester, Richmond and Kalamazoo put this music in front of student audiences who may be hearing a duduk for the first time.

If one of these cities is yours, go. Poetry this old, set this way, does not come through often.

Sources: The Conrad: The Naghash Ensemble bio (theconrad.org); Musical Bridges: The Naghash Ensemble – Russell Hill Rogers Musical Evenings, 11/8/2026 (musicalbridges.org); I Love NY: The Naghash Ensemble of Armenia brings ancient poetry and contemporary music to Saratoga Springs (iloveny.com); NYS Music: The Naghash Ensemble – Ancient Echoes, Modern Journey (nysmusic.com); Mirror-Spectator: Naghash Ensemble to tour US on 10th anniversary (mirrorspectator.com); Armenian Weekly: Celebrating 10 years of Armenian music on the global stage (armenianweekly.com); Armenian Weekly: The Naghash Ensemble announces New York debut (armenianweekly.com); WOMEX: The Naghash Ensemble (womex.com); Epiphany Records: The Naghash Ensemble (epiphanyrecords.com); Chronogram: John Hodian & Naghash Ensemble, Volume 1: Songs of Exile (chronogram.com); Longwood Gardens: The Naghash Ensemble (longwoodgardens.org); University of Michigan: The Naghash Ensemble (events.umich.edu)