Alan S. Gardner (1950-2006)

Born on March 2 1950, in Lynn, MA, he was the son of Alfred Gardner and the late Alice Mooradian Gardner. He attended Swampscott High School in MA and Kent’s Hill School in ME, and then Bates College on a football scholarship.

After his junior year at Bates, Al took a year to study composition and arranging at the Berklee College of Music. He founded and led the Bates College Big Band, and was musical director and conductor for the Bates College Theater Orchestra. He graduated from Bates in 1973 with a major in theater and minors in religion, art history, and music. While at Bates, he studied composition with Professor Elliott Schwartz of Bowdoin College.

Al’s Armenian grandparents were born during the Ottoman Empire in Anatolia and Syria. In 1977, Al began studying the Turkish Makam system of composition under the tutelage of master musician, Esber Koprucu, a relationship that continued until Mr. Koprucu’s death in 2003.

Considered a virtuoso of the oud and a master of the G clarinet, Al. was a popular performer at the Maine Center for Cultural Exchange and other venues. His band, the Alan Shavarsh Bardezbanian Middle Eastern Ensemble, played Armenian, Arabic, Greek, and original music from both the folk and classical traditions. His recent CD, “From Kef to Classical,” won wide critical acclaim. He was also director of the Bowdoin College Middle East Ensemble and a faculty member at the Arabic Music Retreat at Mount Holyoke College.

Al was the commissioned composer for “ReOrientalism” which received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the New England Foundation for the Arts, and the LEF Foundation. This marked the first time an Armenian composer was commissioned to compose Peshrevs and Semais (classical Middle Eastern forms) since the Ottoman Empire. He was an artist in residence at the New World Theatre’s Play Developmental Laboratory and was a featured artist at the National Folk Festival produced by the National Council for the Traditional Arts.

An accomplished professional martial arts instructor for over 31 years, Al began studying both Karate and Kung Fu in 1963. He was full contact Kuo Shu champion in 1968 and 1969, and was honored as “Cultural Athlete of the Year” by the Chinese Embassy. Al held the titles of Renshi Shihan Kaiden and the rank of 8th Dan in Shotokan Karate-Do and 3rd Dan in Hakko Ryu and Jui Jitsu . He also held the titles of SiGung (teacher of teachers) in the Kung Fu arts of Tai Chi , Pakua and Hsing-I, and the title of Sifu (instructor) in Wing Chun.

Al served as martial arts instructor at Bates and Bowdoin Colleges and at Harvard University along with teaching various police departments in Maine and Massachusetts. He also served on the board of directors for a number of national organizations and was a Director of the National Martial Arts Association.

Al established Wu Hsing Shan on Front St. in Bath in 1975 as a traditional Japanese and Chinese martial arts school, where he has taught martial arts to hundreds of area children and adults. In a tribute to Al, his students have vowed to continue the school and its tradition of teaching self defense, physical and spiritual well-being, and character development.