Jeré Longman

New York Times

As a Los Angeles teenager in the 1930s and early ’40s, Ed Iskenderian built a roadster from a used Ford Model T and raced with friends on dry lake beds in the Mojave Desert at speeds that eventually reached 120 miles per hour.

In time, Isky, as he was known, became renowned in the high-speed community as an affable, cigar-chomping hot-rod pioneer, innovative machinist and clever promoter nicknamed “the Camfather.” Taking a cue from the “Godfather” movies, his company advertised that it would “grind you a camshaft you could not refuse.”

Mr. Iskenderian, whose broad impact on the automotive racing culture ranged from drag strips and salt flats to the Indianapolis 500 and Daytona 500, died on Feb. 4 in hospice care in Torrance, Calif., said Nolan Jamora, the chief operating officer of Iskenderian Racing Cams. He was 104.

Mr. Iskenderian was best known for building or “grinding” camshafts, which are essentially an engine’s heartbeat. A camshaft consists of a rod and shaped lobes that synchronize the opening and closing of the engine’s air intake and exhaust valves. The size and shape of the lobes can be adjusted to affect power, torque, performance and fuel efficiency.

Car and Driver magazine noted in a tribute that Mr. Iskenderian’s “influence can be felt in every form of motorsport today.”

As one who revolutionized the camshaft business, he helped to turn “a hobby into an industry” of customized auto parts worth more than $52 billion in annual sales in the United States, Mike Spagnola, the chief executive of the Specialty Equipment Market Association, said in a statement. Mr. Iskenderian was the trade group’s first president, in 1963.

He started his own camshaft production company, as the sole employee, in 1946. A onetime apprentice tool-and-die maker, just back from wartime service in the Army Air Forces, he found the Los Angeles hot rod scene running at full throttle and the wait for high-performance camshafts to be a frustrating five months. He bought a grinding machine from a mentor and placed it on a dirt floor in a back room of a friend’s machine shop in Culver City, Calif.

His first major project was enhancing the performance of Ford Flathead V8s, a dominant racing engine of the 1940s and early ’50s. His solution was to create “fast action” cams that opened the intake valves earlier and held them open longer during the combustion process, allowing more air and fuel to flow into the cylinders, boosting horsepower.

Within a decade, he became the leading cam authority. His cams powered numerous iconic engines, including the four Pontiac V8s that fueled Mickey Thompson’s Challenger 1 when he became the first American driver to exceed 400 miles per hour, on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah in 1960.

Mr. Iskenderian also built the technologically challenging four camshafts used in a turbocharged Cosworth DFX V8 engine that Johnny Rutherford drove to a commanding victory by 30 seconds in his Yellow Submarine at the 1980 Indianapolis 500.

“Give him a lawn-mower engine, and he’d probably hot-rod it and love it,” Matt Stone, Mr. Iskenderian’s biographer, said in an interview.

The camshaft company, now in Gardena, Calif., south of Los Angeles, has expanded to 60 employees and 100,000 square feet of space. Mr. Iskenderian was considered among the first to use computers to design camshafts, though it was also said of his skill, with only mild hyperbole, that he could grind one out of a broomstick.

“He was deeply and perennially curious,” said Mr. Stone, the author of “Isky: Ed Iskenderian and the History of Hot Rodding” (2017). “He just wanted to know, ‘How does that work, how can I make it better, faster?’”

Edward Iskenderian was born on July 10, 1921, in the farming community of Cutler, Calif., in the San Joaquin Valley. His parents, Dickran and Armine (Keremian) Iskenderian, were Armenian immigrants who owned a small vineyard but lost most of their grape crop during a winter frost in 1920.

The family soon moved to Los Angeles, where Dickran Iskenderian, once a blacksmith, opened a shoe repair shop. Ed, too, began working with tools when he took shop class in grade school. He learned in junior high to repair radios for his neighbors and took automotive shop class in high school.

“I’m sure this is why I ended up wanting to make or fix things,” he told his biographer.

As a teenager, he and his friends bought used Model Ts for $5 or $10, stripped them down to make them faster and to resemble cars they had seen at tracks and in newspaper photographs. Before the term “hot rod” came into use, early modified cars were known as “gow jobs” — “gow” being a slang term for hopped-up or souped-up.

After World War II, he resumed modifying the Model T roadster he had as a teenager and, in June 1948, was featured on the cover of the fledgling Hot Rod magazine. His roadster was named hot rod of the month.

The Isky Roadster, as it is known, remains one of the most celebrated hot rods ever built and is now at the Museum of American Speed in Lincoln, Neb. Over the years, Mr. Iskenderian sent admirers thousands of photos of himself sitting in the car, with the autograph, “From one hot rodder to another,” a sign of his keen sense of promotion, marketing and advertising.

He was among the first in the automotive industry to use branded T-shirts and logo-embossed stickers and decals as marketing tools. He also signed one of the earliest sponsorship deals with a driver — Don Garlits, known as Big Daddy, the drag-racing legend.

The Iskenderian company name appeared on cars he sponsored in races. His advertisements in racing publications offered technical advice, accompanied by cartoons that showed Mr. Iskenderian striking heroic

poses and making gibes at competitors during the so-called “cam wars” of the 1950s and ’60s.

He is survived by two sons, Richard and Timothy; a daughter, Armina; a brother, Ben; and eight grandchildren. His wife, Alice Garbooshian, whom he married in 1947, died in 2024. Their eldest son, Ronald, also died that year.

Mr. Iskenderian’s boyhood during the Depression left an indelible imprint. He seldom threw anything away, friends said. The Cadillacs that he preferred for daily driving were often filled, except for a small space behind the steering wheel, with soda bottles, books, magazines, camshafts and fishing gear. More than one visitor to his office failed at first glance to see him sitting behind the mountainous pile on his desk.

When his glasses broke, by all accounts a regular ordeal, he was known to replace damaged stems with pipe cleaners and, once, with fishing line and lead weights.

His ingenuity in the camshaft world was also born in part from his generation’s experience with deprivation. Mr. Jamora, of Iskenderian Racing Cams, put it simply: “They had to use what they could.”

News.am

According to unconfirmed reports, the official reason from the ministry was that Gzoyan was not properly supervising the construction of the Tsitsernakaberd memorial complex, which, by the way, is not part of the latter’s functions.

According to our information, the director decided not to resist and wrote the application, but the collective protested: they demanded that the director not rush and they sent a letter to the Prime Minister asking for the reason for changing the director of the museum-institute once again.

The letter was forwarded from the Prime Minister’s Office to the Minister of Education, Science and Culture, and the employees stood up as one and urged the director not to give up and not to write an application.

According to our information, Raymond Gevorgyan, the chairman of the board of trustees of the “Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute” foundation, a well-known Armenian genocide expert from the France, also resigned.

ARA.cat

BARCELONAPianist Laura Farré Rozada (Vilanova i la Geltrú) speaks to ARA by phone from the United States. She is currently on tour presenting her album. Araspel (2025), an emotionally overwhelming album dedicated to Armenian music. It doesn’t abandon the French influence of previous albums, The French reverie (2018) and Nimbus (2021), because it knowledgeably connects Debussy and Komitas, the pioneer of Armenian ethnomusicology.

Where does your interest in Armenia’s musical heritage come from?

— It hasn’t been an obvious process, let’s say. About ten years ago, when I was still studying at Esmuc, I came across Komitas’s music, which was very different from the music I had studied or been made to study at the conservatory. It really caught my attention, and I thought there must surely be a significant musical tradition in Armenia, a country whose classical music we didn’t study. Aram Khatxaturian and Arno Babadjanian are the two well-known figures, but beyond that, I didn’t know much about Armenia.

And then you pull the thread of Komitas (1869-1935).

— Yes, and I got hooked: you lift a rock and out pop all these fantastic and completely unknown Armenian composers. I love discovering new repertoire and immersing myself in other cultures like this. Discovering composers is also important for the continuity of classical music. We can’t keep listening to the same pieces forever. Besides, as a pianist, discovering new music is incredibly enriching because it’s also a way to develop new skills and broaden my range as a performer. When you play different repertoire, you develop your technique, your listening skills, and your expressiveness. In parallel, I’ve been working on the other two albums and many other projects. Araspel It was a project that required time, and I needed to understand the country’s culture.

Have you traveled to Armenia?

— Yes, twice. It was a trip I kept postponing because I was a little scared, but the Nagorno-Karabakh war with Azerbaijan ended. Finally, I went during Holy Week. I was able to travel the entire country and speak with many musicologists and performers, and I finally put the pieces of the puzzle together because I understood how they were all connected and how important they had been to the country’s musical tradition. Then I returned in October, after the album had already been released, to launch the project. I gave three launch concerts, and I have two more scheduled for June at the Arno Babadjanian Concert Hall. Traveling to the country has allowed me to understand the music I play, its culture, and its history much better. It was when I returned from the first trip that I wrote the liner notes, because that’s when I truly understood the narrative I wanted to convey about all the composers and the significance of each one.

Komitas shares the context of musical nationalism in late 19th and early 20th century Europe, doesn’t it?

— Exactly. Komitas was a very important figure because he was one of the pioneers of ethnomusicology. He was a priest and knew the Armenian liturgy very well, and he made great contributions in this regard, but he also did a great deal of work traveling throughout the country before the genocide and transcribing folk songs. He has many compositions that are transcriptions of these melodies, and others that he created inspired by a certain folk aesthetic. In this, he was quite a pioneer, because Bartók did it somewhat later in Hungary, Romania, and Slovenia. Then he had the misfortune of suffering through the genocide, and in the last years of his life, he spent them in asylums because he was absolutely depressed by everything he had experienced. He is indeed a very important figure for Armenians because he was the first person to connect liturgical music with folk music. Furthermore, he studied in Berlin and had a Western scholastic education that he knew how to apply to create a national musical language.

Then there’s Alexander Spendaryan.

— Yes, Spendiaryan followed in Komitas’s footsteps. In the West, we’re accustomed to distinct historical periods: the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Baroque, Romanticism… In Armenia, this isn’t the case. Until the 19th century, folk music and liturgical music in Armenia were separate. That’s why Komitas is so important, because he was the first to connect these two worlds. Later, Spendiaryan gave them a symphonic language and wrote operas, which is why the Yerevan Opera House is named after him. There’s also a very important institution for Armenian music, the Yerevan State Conservatory, which was founded precisely at the beginning of the Soviet Union and contributed to the country’s cultural reconstruction after the genocide. Many composers who had been in exile returned with the conservatory’s founding. This is where the foundations laid by Komitas truly took shape, and a great classical musical tradition was created.

Is there much difference between works composed in Armenia and those created in exile?

— This is an interesting topic. On the album, the first half features works by composers who lived in Armenia or in the Soviet Union’s satellite states. Then, starting with the work of Ofer Ben-Amots, I move to the United States to discuss the diaspora. In the case of diaspora composers, there’s a nostalgic element that I don’t find in the original Armenian composers. For example, Alan Hovhaness, half Scottish, half American, half Armenian, felt the need to return to Armenia and understand its folklore. There is a difference, because these are people who have spent a lot of time in the West and haven’t been as influenced by Armenia’s Eastern culture. I’ve also noticed that Armenian music is very different from that of neighboring countries like Georgia. If you attend an Armenian mass, the type of intervals they use is very similar to that of Armenian classical music, with many augmented seconds and these more Eastern-style scales. And it’s quite unique to them. I did research in neighboring countries, and they have nothing to do with each other.

And what about in other neighboring countries with a Muslim tradition?

— Perhaps with Turkey, because of the proximity. They share some instruments, but the folklore is quite different. Like Bulgaria, which is a country that could be considered quite similar because of the types of rhythms they use. Armenian music has a sensitivity that deeply moves me. And I think that on the album I’ve managed to convey that melodic and timbral richness.

Armenians also say that the sensitivity of the poet Sayat-Novà is unique.

— It’s an ancient civilization. They’ve been invaded by everyone throughout the centuries, and they’ve also been enriched by other cultures. Is Armenian music pure? No, it’s the result of many centuries of cultural mixing. But in the music of neighboring countries, I haven’t found anything that moves me as much as Armenian music. It’s a country that isn’t going through its best moment, and they’re trying to find what makes them unique, to feel that they are important and that they must continue to exist. Part of the goal of this album is to bring them to light and for people to become aware of the genocide; to be aware that we have this musical heritage, so much of which is still unrecorded. I’m preparing the next album, and I have a lot of scores that haven’t even been recorded. It’s music that should be much more present in concert halls.

Tell me the story of Ofer Ben-Amots’ piece: The butterfly effect. Laura Farré Rozada’s tone.?

— I toured the United States in 2019, right before the pandemic. I had already worked with Ofer. We’ve been collaborating on different projects for ten years. At that time, I was just starting out. the doctorate on connecting music and mathematics in the field of musical memoryAnd it suited me very well to have a commissioned work that would test my memory and be based on mathematics. For its creation, he drew inspiration from the Fibonacci sequence, chaos theory, and the butterfly effect. And I’ve used it for my doctoral thesis and in the context of the album, because the butterfly effect is the metaphor that a butterfly flapping its wings at one end of the world creates a catastrophe at the other. He wrote it in the context of the pandemic that began in China and then spread everywhere, but it also helped me explain the phenomenon of genocide, which led to many people going into exile and generating a diaspora with cultural ramifications. It’s the work I use as a turning point on the album.

Have you ever thought about creating your own compositions inspired by this type of repertoire? Or is your performance already a form of composition?

— I suppose I will do it someday, but right now I’m very focused on performing and I like to act as a conduit between these scores and the audience. Performance is indeed a form of composition, in a way: even if you follow the guidelines in the score, you always add your own personal touch. For me, each album is also like a form of composition because there’s a very defined narrative; it’s not just a collection of pieces, but I pay close attention to how I link them because my goal is for the album itself to be a single work, so that when you listen to it you don’t get the feeling you’re listening to twenty pieces, but rather a single piece that evolves.

You mentioned earlier that the next project would also follow the Armenian path.

— Yes, I’d especially like to focus on Gayane Chebotarian (1918-1998), a composer who has been one of the great discoveries of this album. She was a great musicologist, pianist, and composer, and a close collaborator of Aram Khatxaturian, yet she’s very little known, which really frustrates me because she’s an extraordinary talent. I’d love to record a lot of her music that hasn’t been recorded yet. All these years I’ve been researching, I’ve been collecting a huge amount of her music, and for Araspel I’ve had to focus on a repertoire that fit on the album.

Although she is the one most represented on the album.

— Yes, I’ve included four of his preludes, but he has much more music, very profound music, that deeply moves me. The problem is that it hasn’t been recorded. I’d like to give it a second wind, to make it known and delve deeper into his music.

Where do you find this fascination with Armenian music? In the harmonies?

— Expressively, it’s the music I’ve played that moves me the most. Obviously, it’s music I haven’t listened to as much, and I suppose if I’d been born listening to it, I might not have this fascination. But it has a quality that captivates me, something I can’t quite put my finger on. Simply put, it’s music I’ve connected with.

As the war with Iran enters its second week, Israel’s National Security Council (NSC) has expanded its travel warnings to additional countries, advising Israelis to avoid visiting Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan.

The announcement follows earlier warnings urging Israelis to avoid travel to the United Arab Emirates and to refrain from nonessential stays in Egypt and Jordan.

The NSC said the new guidance comes amid growing concerns that terrorist groups may attempt to carry out attacks against Israelis abroad. At the start of Operation Roaring Lion, Israel’s campaign against Iran, the NSC warned Israelis to avoid travel to the United Arab Emirates due to concerns that terrorist organizations might attempt attacks targeting Israeli citizens.