or Alan Hovaness orig. Alan Hovhaness Chakmakjian
born March 8, 1911, Somerville, Mass., U.S.
U.S. composer.
He started to compose as a child. Studies at the New England Conservatory led him to pursue an interest in non-Western music, which only began to influence his own work after he destroyed his early compositions. Affected by the music of his Armenian heritage and his own lifelong mysticism, he composed more than 400 works, including some 60 symphonies and many other orchestral works, often on sacred themes, sometimes incorporating aleatory or natural sounds, as in And God Created Great Whales (1970).