Dr Rina Schiller, Queen's University Belfast

David Tchegloff is a German teenager who in 2019, at 14 years of age, made a short video about Armenian music and its relations to ethnic violence and genocide as a special project for his school. The video presentation focuses on the Armenian-American heavy metal band, System of a Down, who have combined elements from traditional Armenian folk music with their self-composed heavy metal style songs. They are known world-wide for campaigning through their music for recognition of the Armenian genocide. Both their innovative combinations of musical styles and their thematic anti-war messages caught David’s attention for putting his video together.

Dr Schiller's presentation* looks at how David employs his own skills on musical instruments to demonstrate in his video how the compositions are put together and what musical means System of a Down employ to express their political message to their audiences.

*Please note, all presentations are for academic and research viewing purposes only and cannot be posted in the public domain or used in part or full on any other media platforms or social media sites.   All rights are reserved and held by Participants. For more information regarding licensing/permisssions usage and queries, please contact our Project Manager, Christina Captieux c.captieux@qub.ac.uk  

The Conference was organised as part of the AHRC/ESRC funded Partnership for Conflict, Crime and Security Research project Sounding Conflict: From Resistance to Reconciliation 2017-2021.