Mayrig

A deeply personal, intimate program centered on the human voice, Mayrig (“mother” in Armenian) is a 60-minute show created by Armenian-Canadian cellist and composer Karen Ouzounian and Estonian-American composer Lembit Beecher for cello with electronics, piano, and vocals. The voices of Karen’s mother and grandmother are interwoven with original arrangements of Armenian music from her family’s past home of Anatolia, songs and stories drawn from their post-genocide home of Lebanon, and the beloved music of Charles Aznavour.

New compositions by Lembit reflect upon the experience of childhood, war, trauma, migration, and the passage of time, while the music of friends Layale Chaker, Nathalie Joachim, and Niloufar Nourbakhsh expand upon themes of generational transmission, rootedness, and uprootedness, with music teeming with passion and celebration, resilience and rage. Opening and closing the program is Marin Marais’s Les Voix Humaines, music from hundreds of years ago providing a window into the present.

Karen Ouzounian - cello & vocals

Lembit Beecher - electronics & piano