Karen Ouzounian: Mayrig

A cellist and composer with “tremendous heart … joy and captivating sound” (The Strad), Karen Ouzounian regularly collaborates with the Silkroad Ensemble, among other singular musicians. Co-created by Ouzounian and composer/pianist Lembit Beecher, the chamber-music project Mayrig (“mother” in Armenian) lifts three generations of family voices into an immersive and intimate program centered on the human instrument. Across the hour-long performance, the voices of Ouzounian, her mother, and her grandmother are interwoven with original arrangements of Armenian music from their family’s past home of Anatolia, songs and stories drawn from their post-genocide home of Lebanon, and the beloved music of Charles Aznavour.

Themes of generational transmission, rootedness, and uprootedness flow into new compositions by Beecher, Layale Chaker, Nathalie Joachim, and Niloufar Nourbakhsh that teem with passion and celebration as well as music reflecting resilience and rage. Jacketing the journey at its welcome and release is Marin Marais’s Les Voix Humaines, music from hundreds of years ago that nonetheless peers clearly into the present world.

In collaboration with Ravinia and the Steans Alumni Catalyst Fund—an initiative that supports artistic innovation by musicians who advanced their creative spirit as Steans Institute fellows—Ouzounian and Beecher premiere an expanded edition of Mayrig featuring deeper chamber music with oud, viola, and bass alongside cello, piano, and electronics, plus an immersive, new physical dimension including hand-drawn illustrations integrated with the performance.