Alarm Will Sound: Paper Pianos
$20 ($15 faculty/staff/senior/non-RPI students, $6 RPI students)
- Mary Kouyoumdjian, co-creator/composer
- Nigel Maister, co-creator/director
- Kevork Mourad, drawing/animation
- Afsoon Pajoufar, set design
- Reza Behjat, lighting design
"I come from refugee parents forced to immigrate to the US as a consequence of the Lebanese Civil War. And my parents come from refugee parents. ...One's relationship to 'home' has played a large role in my music." ~ Mary Kouyoumdjian (composer)
Paper Pianos is a full-length theatrical work co-directed by Armenian-American composer Mary Kouyoumdjian and South African-American director Nigel Maister. The work combines the testimonies of four refugees and resettlement workers with intricate hand-drawn animations of Syrian visual artist Kevork Mourad to vividly depict the dramatic emotional landscape of displacement and resettlement experienced by refugees throughout the world.
Performed live by the 18-piece contemporary ensemble Alarm Will Sound, Paper Pianos invites EMPAC audiences to contemplate the dislocation, longing, and optimism of refugees.
Kouyoumdjian's score uses the recorded voices as integral compositional elements, and draws on folk-music and contemporary-music practices.
Paper Pianos is a vivid, compelling and evocative contemplation of global issues expressed through individual stories of loss and transcendence. The live performance of narrative, music, theatricality and visual gesture engages audiences viscerally in one of the pressing problems of today’s world, distilled down to the heartfelt immediacy of real-life experience.
This is a general admission performance - the seats are on a first-come, first-serve basis when you arrive at the venue. Doors open 1/2 hour prior to start of performance.
About Alarm Will Sound
Alarm Will Sound’s twenty artists perform today's music with classical skill and daring curiosity.
https://www.alarmwillsound.com/About Mary Kouyoumdjian, co-creator/composer
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.
https://www.marykouyoumdjian.com/About Nigel Maister, co-creator/director
About Kevork Mourad, drawing/animation
About Afsoon Pajoufar, set design
Afsoon Pajoufar is a NYC-based designer of stage and environment for play, opera, and live performance.
https://www.afsoonpajoufar.com/About Reza Behjat, lighting design
EMPAC | Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer
44 8th StTroy, NY 12180
United States