Composers in Focus: Mary Kouyoumdjian

Composers in Focus offers audiences a rare opportunity to sit in on intimate conversations between composers and musicians with a pre-recorded performance of their music featuring CMS artists.

Mary Kouyoumdjian is an Armenian-American composer and documentarian, with projects ranging from concert works to multimedia collaborations and film scores. She discusses her work to open myself, to scream for Clarinet, Trumpet, Violin, Cello, Bass, Audio Playback, and Film with visual artist Kevork Mourad, clarinetist Todd Palmer, and cellist Mihai Marica.

to open myself, to scream is a portrait piece on Austrian-Romani artist, writer, musician, and Holocaust survivor Ceija Stojka. This mixed-medium work is inspired by various paintings of Stojka’s – from her paintings that celebrate her free and vibrant Romani life, to those that explore the horrific experiences she endured during the Holocaust.