MARY KOUYOUMDJIAN

Hi Mary and thank you for taking the time out to speak with us at Musicology.

There are some harrowing reconciliations by survivors across the album, and just how does one (and the collective) go about putting music to such horrid real-life tales? 

Music alone can never fully encompass the horrible experiences of survivors of genocide and war. Even at its absolute ugliest, music is still beautiful, but human speech is incredibly direct and impactful. The speakers in Bombs of Beirut and Silent Cranes already speak so vulnerably and openly about their experiences, so for me, the music’s purpose in these pieces is to (1) serve and support the testimonies and text through what I can only imagine the speakers’ psychological trajectory to be as they share their testimonies and (2) to create the time, space, and community for listeners to not only hear these difficult stories, but to have the environment to absorb, process, and respond to these incredibly universal themes of displacement experienced by so many. If the musical language and soundscape can have the humility to support the testimonies, then I believe it can also speak honestly and invite genuine connection between listener and speaker.

Bringing an Armenian and Lebanese voice to the forefront is a refreshing perspective and one that is less often heard and rarely given the platform it deserves. Given the opportunity, what felt like the most important points to bring forward into the light?

On one hand, simply sharing the historical events of both the Lebanese Civil War and Armenian Genocide felt incredibly important. Most people don’t know that the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990) had happened, not to mention tensions within Lebanon itself and with Israel preceding the event, and also how the collective events have resulted in Israel’s attacks on Lebanon in this last year. Even fewer people seem to know that the Armenian genocide had happened in the early 20th century, with the mass extermination of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks, not to mention that the U.S. was over a century late to recognizing the Armenian genocide, and that the Turkish government continues to deny that it ever happened at all. So encouraging awareness is one aspect of creating these pieces, because our history continues to repeat itself, and we often stay passive as entire communities are wiped out, lands are stolen, and culture is erased. When our governments stay silent, we need artists to shout for the repetition to stop. 

And while awareness and education are part of these pieces, at its very core, I am trying to create human-to-human understanding between the listener and the speaker. I am trying, in the best way I know how, to bridge the gap between someone who has experienced war or genocide in a place and circumstance that may feel distant and someone who has not, and I’d like to give the listener the benefit of the doubt that they would like to understand these circumstances better and hopefully will act on this understanding.

Music as a medium to express emotions and sentiments can stretch the discipline to the fullest but when used as a vehicle to capture and convey the horrors of conflict, such as the album does with the regions of the Middle East, Caucasus, and America, takes the art form to another level. How do you utilise your music to best summarise and extol the realities you are tackling through the music you make?

I’m not sure that my music could summarize such massive moments in our history and present, but perhaps a wider collection of political artistic works from myself and our larger community of artists can help create a fuller picture through our shared activism. For me, all I can do is create music that feels honest to the stories being shared, and part of that means not censoring or editing out the difficult truths they share in the audio playback. Some of the testimonies are quite graphic, and some of the field recordings are quite horrific, but I have a great deal of faith that these uncomfortable moments are constructive for our understanding. This is why Bombs of Beirut has a four-minute stretch of field recordings of bombs recorded during the Lebanese Civil War and why Silent Cranes has a massive and extensive soundwall of simultaneous interviews and multi-tracked strings sawing away at their instruments –– these sonically overwhelming moments can feel uncomfortable, and I truly believe that safe environments of discomfort, like on our headphones or in a concert hall, can be a productive tool for sparking human connection and fostering a community that pushes to have less discomfort in our world. 

Now just as in the past, music has been used to protest, highlighting atrocities, and alert a wider world to what is happening in localised geopolitics. Do you see the music you are making for yourself (and your people) as protest music?

I see my music more as “human connection” music. Coming from communities that have not always had the freedom to speak up, I’m grateful that in my present I have the privilege and freedom to express (although here in the U.S. artistic expression is currently being compromised!). I whole-heartedly will continue speaking up as best as I am able.

Instrumentally, just how was the approach toward using classical and native inspired music to encapsulate all that you are trying to convey?

I’m not sure I had an approach necessarily, so much as both Western European classical music and Armenian and Lebanese folk music have always had significant roles in my musical upbringing. These are the musical languages that I have always had circling around me, whether it was from piano lessons in my childhood or listening to my father’s records that he brought with him from Beirut, so the sounds have inevitably become a part of my own musical language. 

With the music you are producing, you are carrying forward the trials and tribulations of a populace on a multigenerational level. Did you consult with elders on their perspectives, the commonalities they experienced, and how those experiences overlap with those of the younger members of society currently going through the same horrors of war?

I’m not sure I necessarily had to intentionally research this idea across generations, as my experience as an Armenian with family and community who experienced the events explored on the album and who continue to experience similar atrocities –– whether they live in Beirut and are presently impacted by the Israeli attacks or have been recently been displaced from Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) from the ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan –– means that these multigenerational traumas are still living with all of us. 

I recently created a music-documentary work entitled ANDOUNI [Homeless] with photojournalist Scout Tufankjian and the New York Philharmonic around the ethnic cleansing of indigenous Armenians from Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh –– this is an event that happened a year and a half ago that has gotten so little attention and even less aid  –– and it breaks my heart to hear and see individuals of all ages have to deal with loss of life and home yet again, just like those who came before them. 

The resonance of what you created will reverberate for years to come, and was there ever a consideration in the way you approached some of the songs off the record?

Thank you, that really means a lot! Resonance and impact are certainly on my mind, but perhaps in an atypical way for a composer? I’m less concerned with whether or not a listener will remember the actual sounds from the album, so much as I would love for listeners to remember how they feel when they listen to the album, and hopefully these feelings translate into a greater sense of connection to others and their experiences.

Were there reference points you personally touched upon in your journey to making the album and artists / ideas that guided your steps to making the album?

So many! Kronos Quartet and their long list of collaborators have been the most vibrant guiding lights in this whole album – whether it’s conversations shared with Kronos over the last decade, their body of work that is rich with collaborations with people from around the world, and their commitment to music as activism. The sounds of their albums, from their Nuevo and Caravan albums to Reich’s Different Trains (whom I owe a great deal of thanks to for introducing me to the idea that recorded documentary speech can exist in music making) have absolutely shaped the way I not only wrote for the string quartet, but gave me the courage to say big things with my music. Also, working with the musicologist Ian Nagoski of Canary Records has been such an extraordinary gift. Ian restored the recording of Zabelle Panosian’s Groung (1917), which appears on the album both as a string quartet arrangement on the opening track Groung [Crane] and also as a recorded sample in the last movement “iv. you flew away” from Silent Cranes, and both Zabelle Panosian’s singing and Ian’s research on her biography and resilience as part of the Armenian diaspora have been inspiring to say the least.

What is your ultimate wish for the record and its place in the musical continuum that you would hope it achieves?

My genuine hope is that the album fosters empathy and that empathy evolves into action. 

Lastly, what does music give you that nothing else does? 

A more vibrant present and a future filled with promise.