Mary Kouyoumdjian

Kouyoumdjian was born in the San Francisco Bay Area and grew up there.^[4] She is a first generation Armenian-American from a family directly affected by the Lebanese Civil War and Armenian Genocide.^[5] Kouyoumdjian studied at University of California, San Diego (B.A. in Music Composition); New York University with a focus on Scoring for Film & Multimedia (M.A.);^[6] and Columbia University (D.M.A.^[7] and M.A.).^[8] Primary teachers include Zosha Di Castri, Georg Friedrich Haas, Fred Lerdahl, George Lewis, Chaya Czernowin, Steven Kazuo Takasugi, Anthony Davis, Steven Schick, and Chinary Ung.^[9]

Kouyoumdjian has been commissioned by Bang on a Can,^[10] Carnegie Hall,^[11] the Kronos Quartet,^[12] the Metropolitan Museum of Art,^[13] New York Philharmonic,^[14] OPERA America,^[15] and many others. Her work has been recorded by artists such as The Merian Ensemble (members of the Atlanta Symphony),^[16] Kronos Quartet,^[17] and violist Noémie Chemali.^[18]

A co-founder of New Music Gathering,^[19] Kouyoumdjian also served as the founding Executive Director of contemporary music ensemble Hotel Elefant,^[20] and Co-Artistic Director of Wild Shore New Music.^[21]

Kouyoumdjian is Composition Faculty at The New School^[22] and the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University.^[23] Kouyoumdjian has previously served on faculty at Boston Conservatory at Berklee,^[8] Brooklyn College's Feirstein School of Cinema,^[24] Columbia University,^[25] Mannes Prep,^[26] and the New York Philharmonic's Very Young Composers program.^[27]

Kouyoumdjian is published by PSNY (Project Schott New York).^[28]

• Paper Pianos was premiered by Alarm Will Sound at EMPAC in Troy, N.Y. on February 25, 2023.^[29] The work was recognized as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Music in 2024.^[30] The Pulitzer committee described the work as, "a socially urgent multi-media work that boldly melds music and audio documentary with first-person stories of refugees, exploring how music serves as solace and inspiration under conditions of displacement."^[2]
• Kouyoumdjian's opera, Adoration, premiered with LA Opera in 2025.^[4]
• WITNESS, Kouyoumdjian's project with Kronos Quartet draws from stories of genocide, civil war, and loss.^[31] The project was developed over a decade of collaboration between the composer and quartet.^[32]

Kouyoumdjian has also worked as a composer, orchestrator, and music editor for film. Selected projects include:

• Writing an original score for An Act of Worship (Capital K Pictures and PBS’s POV Docs),^[33] which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival.
• Orchestrating the soundtrack to The Place Beyond the Pines (Focus Features).^[34]