Mary Kouyoumdjian Announces 23/24 Season: NY Phil Commissions Musical Documentary, First Opera Premieres at Prototype

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Composer Mary Kouyoumdjian Announces 2023-2024 Season
Her Works Honor her Armenian Heritage and Celebrate Human Resilience.

World Premiere of First Opera Adoration at Prototype Festival in NYC

Musical Documentary with Photojournalist Scout Tufankjian,
Shining Light on the Armenian Refugee Crisis, Commissioned and
Premiered by the New York Philharmonic

Musical Documentary, They Will Take My Island, Receives 
First Live Performance at Other Minds Festival in San Francisco

Performances by Kronos Quartet During 50th Anniversary Season

“eloquently scripted” and “emotionally wracking” – The New York Times

“Kouyoumdjian’s voice is all her own, with a surface gentleness that disguises
an iron fist of craft and feeling.” – New York Classical Review

www.marykouyoumdjian.com
 

New York, NY (November 1, 2023) – Armenian-American composer Mary Kouyoumdjian, praised for music of “profound complexities” and “unexpected gentle beauty” (I Care if You Listen), is celebrated for creating new soundscapes from a blend of personal heritage and experimental technique. A documentarian as well as a composer, her work weaves together diverse testimony and life experience in a humanized expression of our complex times. During her 2023-2024 season, Kouyoumdjian unveils new works in the form of film, opera, and multimedia live performance, while earlier works will be featured in programs by the Kronos Quartet and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Orchestra.

On Friday, November 17, 2023 at 8:00PM, the Other Minds Festival presents the first live performance of They Will Take My Island, a collaboration between Kouyoumdjian and filmmaker Atom Egoyan, celebrating the Armenian painter Arshile Gorky. Commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and staged at San Francisco’s Taub Atrium Theater, this 30-minute program integrates an original string octet by Kouyoumdjian with audio and footage from two of Egoyan’s films: Ararat, an exploration of Gorky’s life in the context of the Armenian genocide and modern life, and A Portrait of Arshile, jointly developed by Egoyan and his wife Arsinée Khanjian in dedication to their son, who is named for the painter. Also incorporated are interviews conducted by Kouyoumdjian with art historians and members of Gorky’s family. One such interview quotes Saskia Spender, President of the Arshile Gorky Foundation and granddaughter of Gorky, who comments that “When people are not in a position to talk about truths, perhaps because there is a political or conflict situation, then the artists are the truth tellers.” With its first live performance delayed by the pandemic, They Will Take My Island made its world premiere in a digital presentation by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2021.

On the impetus behind the work, Kouyoumdjian says, “Gorky’s resilience in surviving the Armenian Genocide and living to create such meaningful and impactful work has stayed in my heart since seeing his work for the first time in Egoyan’s film Ararat nearly twenty years ago. Through this film, Egoyan became my first role model of a living Armenian artist who speaks loudly through pulling his heritage into contemporary and socially complex narratives.”

Kouyoumdjian’s first opera, Adoration, commissioned and produced by Beth Morrison Projects and Trinity Church Wall Street, receives its world premiere at the Prototype Festival, held at The Sheen Center for Thought & Culture in New York City from January 12-20, 2024. An adaptation of Atom Egoyan’s film of the same name, Adoration follows Simon, an orphaned high school student in a modern tale exploring the intersection of personal trauma and the viral forces of the internet. As part of a dramatic writing exercise, Simon is encouraged by a teacher to appropriate details from a historical terrorist attack as an event perpetrated by his parents. When his story goes viral, Simon uses the hysteria within his community and online to highlight the challenges of intolerance and racism in our society. The circumstances behind the loss of Simon’s family are revealed in fragments, only fitting together with the final revelation that the prejudices of Simon’s maternal grandfather led to his parents’ deaths. Laine Rettmer directs this production featuring Miriam Khalil, Marc Kudisch, David Adam Moore, Omar Najmi, Naomi Louisa O’Connell, Karim Sulayman and the Silvana Quartet, conducted by Alan Pierson. The Choir of Trinity Wall Street recorded the electronic soundscape for the work.

As stated in program notes for the opera: “Hate is too often portrayed as binary. We either hate or we don’t. We hate someone for something they did or some perceived slight, or we hate ‘the other.’ Yet we are not born with hate—it is learned, nurtured, and developed over the course of a lifetime. Adoration tells two simultaneous stories—a fictional story of terrorism and betrayal juxtaposed with a real story of family strife and rejection of something foreign.”

Along with Beth Morrison Projects and Trinity Church Wall Street, this 90-minute work was made possible by lead commissioner Justus Schlichting, with additional commissioning support provided by Charlotte Isaacs and Susan Bienkowski. Developed by Beth Morrison Projects in association with the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music, Adoration was workshopped at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity as part of the 2023 Opera in the 21st Century Program. Additional support was provided by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, the Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Visionary Women, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, OPERA America’s Opera Fund, and an OPERA America Opera Grants for Female Composers award.

In a second world premiere, the New York Philharmonic will perform a new musical documentary co-created by Kouyoumdjian on Friday, May 10, 2024 at 8:00PM at David Geffen Hall. Commissioned through by the NY Phil’s Project 19 (the largest women-only commissioning initiative in history, launched to mark the centennial of the U.S. Constitution's 19th Amendment), this 20-minute multimedia work represents Kouyoumdjian’s collaboration with photojournalist Scout Tufankjian. Through this music/documentary hybrid, the creators shine a light on the current ethnic cleansing of 120,000 indigenous Armenians out of Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh, a region in the South Caucasus – 100 years after the first Armenian genocide. Besides live performance by the NY Phil, the 20-minute program includes multimedia elements documenting the unfolding struggle. Photography by Tufankjian has been woven together with field recordings gathered in the region, as well as interviews with those directly impacted by the current Armenian refugee crisis and past Nagorno-Karabakh wars.

Among the other highlights of her season, works by Kouyoumdjian will be featured in multiple programs by the Kronos Quartet. On November 9, 2023 at 7:30PM, the quartet performs her work Silent Cranes in a concert presented by Purdue Convocations at Loeb Playhouse, Stewart Center, in West Lafayette, IN. Commissioned by the Kronos Quartet, this four-movement multimedia program was composed in commemoration of the Armenian Genocide. The work takes inspiration from the Armenian folk song Groung (Crane), in which the singer calls out to the migratory bird, begging for word from their homeland – only to have the crane respond with silence and fly away. Along with music composed for amplified string quartet, performance elements include projection art by Laurie Olinder and a prerecorded backing track incorporating testimonies by genocide survivors, recordings from the genocide era of Armenian folk songs, and a poem by investigative journalist David Barsamian in response to the question "Why is it important to talk about the Armenian Genocide 100 years later?"

In her own words on the piece, Kouyoumdjian says: “Those who were lost during the genocide are cranes in their own way, unable to speak of the horrors that happened, and it is the responsibility of the living to give them a voice.”

Kouyoumdjian and Kronos Quartet will unveil another major collaboration on June 20, 2024, as the quartet premieres a new work composed by Kouyoumdjian as part of the Five Decades commissioning project marking Kronos Quartet’s 50th anniversary. Further details to follow.

Among the other performances of her work this season, Kouyoumdijian’s piece Walking With Ghosts will be performed by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Orchestra on December 9, 2023 at 7:30PM at the Caroline M. Hume Concert Hall. Vinay Parameswaran will conduct, with Jeff Anderle featured as bass clarinet soloist. Co-commissioned by One Found Sound, Minnesota Philharmonic Orchestra, and Steve and Brenda Schick of La Jolla Symphony, Walking With Ghosts is – in Kouyoumdjian’s words – “a reflection on the people, experiences, and histories that follow us throughout our lives––whether we walk with their support or carry the burden of their weight.”

On Thursday, May 9, 2024 at 8:00PM, Kouyoumdjian’s piece Aghavni (“Doves”) for solo piano will be featured as part of the program Longing and Belonging by Armenian-Canadian pianist Eve Egoyan (sister of Atom Egoyan) at Toronto’s Meridian Arts Centre. Born, like her brother, to parents who were orphans of the Armenian Genocide, the pianist brings highly personal associations to this work composed with the Genocide at its core. Based off of the poem Carpet Weavers by Brenda Najimian Magarity, Aghavni follows the lives of a group of women before and during the Armenian Genocide, closing with a retrospective look at those women and what they lost from a present-day perspective.

With the conclusion of her season, Kouyoumdjian takes on a summer engagement as a Guest Composer at the Mizzou International Composers Festival, hosted by the Missouri University School of Music from July 22-27, 2024. Along with co-mentor George Lewis, she collaborates in a residency by Alarm Will Sound – including a performance by the acclaimed chamber orchestra of her piece Paper Pianos. Co-created with South African-American director and writer Nigel Maister, Paper Pianos vividly depicts the dramatic emotional landscape of the refugee experience, the ambivalence and hope of finding safety and transnational resettlement, and the transformative and sustaining effects of the imagination and of music on those for whom artistic expression is forbidden. During the festival, resident composers will rehearse with the ensemble and take part in private lessons with Lewis and Kouyoumdjian.

So far this season, Silent Cranes has already been performed by the Kronos Quartet on October 11, 2023 at the Schrott Center for the Arts in Indianapolis. Kouyoumdjian’s work Unholy Wars – a reframing of the Crusades to center a Middle Eastern perspective on belonging and resilience – was performed by Opera Philadelphia in programs from September 23 through October 1, 2023.

Mary Kouyoumdjian 2023-2024 Season Calendar
September 23 – October 1, 2023
Opera Philadelphia Performs Unholy Wars
The Suzanne Roberts Theatre | Philadelphia, PA
Link: www.operaphila.org/whats-on/in-theaters-2023-2024/unholy-wars/

Wednesday, October 11, 2023
Kronos Quartet Performs Silent Cranes
Schrott Center for the Arts | Indianapolis, IN
Link: ensemblemusic.org/20232024-season/2023/10/11/kronos-quartet

Thursday, November 9, 2023
Purdue Convocations Presents Silent Cranes, Featuring Kronos Quartet
Loeb Playhouse, Stewart Center | West Lafayette, IN
Link: kronosquartet.org/events/detail/west-lafayette-in/

Friday, November 17, 2023
Other Minds Festival Presents They Will Take My Island
Taube Atrium Theater | San Francisco, CA
Link: www.otherminds.org/other-minds-festival-27/

Thursday, December 9, 2023
SFCM Orchestra Performs Walking With Ghosts
San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall | San Francisco, CA
Link: sfcm.edu/experience/performances/sfcm-orchestra-vinay-parameswaran

January 12-20, 2024
Prototype Festival Presents Adoration [World Premiere]
Sheen Center for Thought & Culture | New York, NY
Link: prototypefestival.org/shows/adoration/

Thursday, May 9, 2024
Pianist Eve Egoyan Performs Aghavni
Meridian Arts Centre | Toronto, Canada
Link: nowtoronto.com/event/eve-egoyan-longing-and-belonging/

Friday, May 10, 2024
New York Philharmonic Performs a New Musical Documentary by Mary Kouyoumdjian and Scout Tufankjian [World Premiere]
Wu Tsai Theater, David Geffen Hall | New York, NY
Link: nyphil.org/concerts-tickets/2324/sound-on-may

Thursday, June 20, 2024
Kronos Quartet Performs New Commission by Mary Kouyoumdjian [World Premiere]
Kronos Festival | San Francisco, CA
Link: kronosquartet.org/announcing-kronos-five-decades/

July 22-27, 2024
Guest Composer at Mizzou International Composers Festival
University of Missouri School of Music | Columbia, MO
Link: https://newmusic.missouri.edu/micf

About Mary Kouyoumdjian
Mary Kouyoumdjian is a composer and documentarian with projects ranging from concert works to multimedia collaborations and film scores. As a first generation Armenian-American and having come from a family ?directly affected by the Lebanese Civil War and Armenian Genocide, she uses a sonic palette that draws on her heritage, interest in music as documentary, and background in experimental composition to progressively blend the old with the new. A strong believer in freedom of speech and the arts as an amplifier of expression, her compositional work often integrates recorded testimonies with resilient individuals and field recordings of place to invite empathy by humanizing complex experiences around social and political conflict.

Kouyoumdjian has received commissions for such organizations as the New York Philharmonic, Kronos Quartet, Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Beth Morrison Projects/OPERA America, Alarm Will Sound, Bang on a Can, International Contemporary Ensemble, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, the American Composers Forum, Roomful of Teeth, WQXR, REDSHIFT, Experiments in Opera, Helen Simoneau Danse, the Nouveau Classical Project, Music of Remembrance, Friction Quartet, Ensemble Oktoplus, and the Los Angeles New Music Ensemble among others. Her work has been performed internationally at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MASS MoCA, the Barbican Centre, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Millennium Park, Benaroya Hall, Prototype Festival, the New York Philharmonic Biennial, Cabrillo Festival, Big Ears Festival, 21C Music Festival, and Cal Performances. Her residencies include those with EMPAC, Buffalo String Works, Alarm Will Sound/The Mizzou International Composers Festival, Roulette/The Jerome Foundation, Montalvo Arts Center, and Exploring the Metropolis. Her music has been described as “eloquently scripted" and "emotionally wracking” by The New York Times and as "politically fearless" and "the most harrowing moments on stage at any New York performance" by New York Music Daily.  In her work as a composer, orchestrator, and music editor for film, she has collaborated on a diverse array of motion pictures including writing the original score for documentary An Act of Worship (Capital K Pictures and PBS’s POV Docs) and orchestrating on the soundtracks to The Place Beyond the Pines (Focus Features) and Demonic (Dimension Films).

Kouyoumdjian holds a D.M.A and M.A. in composition from Columbia University, where she studied primarily with Zosha Di Castri, Georg Friedrich Haas, Fred Lerdahl, and George Lewis; an M.A. in Scoring for Film & Multimedia from New York University; and a B.A. in Music Composition from the University of California, San Diego, where she studied with Chaya Czernowin, Steven Kazuo Takasugi, Anthony Davis, Steven Schick, and Chinary Ung. Dedicated to new music advocacy, Kouyoumdjian is a Co-Founder of the annual new music conference New Music Gathering, served as the founding Executive Director of contemporary music ensemble Hotel Elefant, and served as Co-Artistic Director of Alaska's new music festival Wild Shore New Music. As an avid educator, Kouyoumdjian is on composition faculty at the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University and The New School; she has previously been on faculty at Columbia University, Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Brooklyn College's Feirstein School of Cinema, Mannes Prep, and the New York Philharmonic's Very Young Composers program. Kouyoumdjian is proud to have her music published by Schott's PSNY and is based in Brooklyn, NY. Learn more at www.marykouyoumdjian.com.

*Photo Credit: Alik Barsoumian

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