MARY KOUYOUMDJIAN is a GRAMMY®-nominated composer and documentarian with projects ranging from concert works to multimedia collaborations and film scores. A finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Music and a first-generation Armenian-American, she draws on a sonic palette rooted in her heritage, including family directly affected by the Lebanese Civil War and the Armenian Genocide. Combining her interest in music as documentary with a background in experimental composition, she progressively blends the old with the new. A strong believer in freedom of speech and in the arts as an amplifier of expression, she often integrates recorded testimonies of resilient individuals with field recordings of place, inviting empathy by humanizing complex experiences of social and political conflict.
Kouyoumdjian’s 2026-2027 season includes the release of the world premiere recording of her evening-length sonic-documentary album Paper Pianos, a Pulitzer Prize-finalist in Music, directed and written by Nigel Maister and performed by the GRAMMY® Award-winning ensemble Alarm Will Sound, out on Cantaloupe Music. The season also features the world premieres of two new orchestral works, including Keep Your Eyes Open, featuring Stephanie Childress as conductor and narrator in collaboration with cultural historian and author Colin Dickey, co-commissioned by the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and Naples Philharmonic; as well as In Their Tongue, a work co-commissioned by the Fresno Philharmonic, California Symphony, Knoxville Symphony, and Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra as part of New Music USA's Amplifying Voices program. Kouyoumdjian is currently working on a new viola piece for Hank Dutt, a former violist of the Kronos Quartet, as well as several large-scale works.
Kouyoumdjian has received commissions for such organizations as the New York Philharmonic, Kronos Quartet, Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Beth Morrison Projects/OPERA America, Alarm Will Sound, Bang on a Can, International Contemporary Ensemble, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, the Houston Symphony, American Composers Forum, Roomful of Teeth, WQXR, REDSHIFT, Experiments in Opera, Helen Simoneau Danse, the Nouveau Classical Project, Music of Remembrance, Friction Quartet, Ensemble Oktoplus, and the Los Angeles New Music Ensemble among others. Her work has been performed internationally at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MASS MoCA, the Barbican Centre, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Millennium Park, Benaroya Hall, Prototype Festival, the New York Philharmonic Biennial, Cabrillo Festival, SF Jazz, Big Ears Festival, 21C Music Festival, and Cal Performances.
Her opera Adoration, adapted from Atom Egoyan’s 2008 film, was commissioned, developed, produced, and premiered by Beth Morrison Projects in New York City before receiving its West Coast premiere at LA Opera to rave reviews. The world premiere recording was released on Bright Shiny Things in August 2025 and was nominated for a GRAMMY® Award for Best Opera Recording, making history as the first opera by an Armenian composer in the category. Kouyoumdjian’s debut portrait album, WITNESS with the Kronos Quartet, was released through Phenotypic Recordings in 2025 and was called “powerful, poignant” by Gramophone and “gorgeous, brutal, and awe-stricken” by FLOOD Magazine. In May 2025, her Pulitzer-nominated music-documentary, Paper Pianos, commissioned by Alarm Will Sound, was performed at The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center following its 2023 premiere at EMPAC.
Kouyoumdjian’s residencies include Buffalo String Works, Alarm Will Sound/The Mizzou International Composers Festival, Roulette/The Jerome Foundation, Montalvo Arts Center, EMPAC, and Exploring the Metropolis. Her music has been described as “eloquently scripted" and "emotionally wracking” by The New York Times and as "politically fearless" and "the most harrowing moments on stage at any New York performance" by New York Music Daily. In her work as a composer, orchestrator, and music editor for film, she has collaborated on a diverse array of motion pictures, including writing the original score for the documentary An Act of Worship (Capital K Pictures and PBS’s POV Docs) and orchestrating the soundtrack to The Place Beyond the Pines (Focus Features).
Kouyoumdjian holds a D.M.A. and M.A. in composition from Columbia University, where she studied primarily with Zosha Di Castri, Georg Friedrich Haas, Fred Lerdahl, and George Lewis; an M.A. in Scoring for Film & Multimedia from New York University; and a B.A. in Music Composition from the University of California, San Diego, where she studied with Chaya Czernowin, Steven Kazuo Takasugi, Anthony Davis, Steven Schick, and Chinary Ung.
Dedicated to new music advocacy, Kouyoumdjian is a Co-Founder of the annual new music conference New Music Gathering, served as the founding Executive Director of contemporary music ensemble Hotel Elefant, and served as Co-Artistic Director of Alaska's new music festival Wild Shore New Music.
As an avid educator, Kouyoumdjian is the Associate Professor of Composition for Collaborative Media at Mannes School of Music at The New School; she has previously been on faculty at Columbia University, the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University, Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Brooklyn College's Feirstein School of Cinema, Mannes Prep, and the New York Philharmonic's Very Young Composers program. Kouyoumdjian is proud to have her music published by Schott's PSNY and is based in Brooklyn, NY
Kouyoumdjian’s 2026-2027 season includes the release of the world premiere recording of her evening-length sonic-documentary album Paper Pianos, a Pulitzer Prize-finalist in Music, directed and written by Nigel Maister and performed by the GRAMMY® Award-winning ensemble Alarm Will Sound, out on Cantaloupe Music. The season also features the world premieres of two new orchestral works, including Keep Your Eyes Open, featuring Stephanie Childress as conductor and narrator in collaboration with cultural historian and author Colin Dickey, co-commissioned by the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and Naples Philharmonic; as well as In Their Tongue, a work co-commissioned by the Fresno Philharmonic, California Symphony, Knoxville Symphony, and Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra as part of New Music USA's Amplifying Voices program. Kouyoumdjian is currently working on a new viola piece for Hank Dutt, a former violist of the Kronos Quartet, as well as several large-scale works.
Kouyoumdjian has received commissions for such organizations as the New York Philharmonic, Kronos Quartet, Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Beth Morrison Projects/OPERA America, Alarm Will Sound, Bang on a Can, International Contemporary Ensemble, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, the Houston Symphony, American Composers Forum, Roomful of Teeth, WQXR, REDSHIFT, Experiments in Opera, Helen Simoneau Danse, the Nouveau Classical Project, Music of Remembrance, Friction Quartet, Ensemble Oktoplus, and the Los Angeles New Music Ensemble among others. Her work has been performed internationally at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MASS MoCA, the Barbican Centre, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Millennium Park, Benaroya Hall, Prototype Festival, the New York Philharmonic Biennial, Cabrillo Festival, SF Jazz, Big Ears Festival, 21C Music Festival, and Cal Performances.
Her opera Adoration, adapted from Atom Egoyan’s 2008 film, was commissioned, developed, produced, and premiered by Beth Morrison Projects in New York City before receiving its West Coast premiere at LA Opera to rave reviews. The world premiere recording was released on Bright Shiny Things in August 2025 and was nominated for a GRAMMY® Award for Best Opera Recording, making history as the first opera by an Armenian composer in the category. Kouyoumdjian’s debut portrait album, WITNESS with the Kronos Quartet, was released through Phenotypic Recordings in 2025 and was called “powerful, poignant” by Gramophone and “gorgeous, brutal, and awe-stricken” by FLOOD Magazine. In May 2025, her Pulitzer-nominated music-documentary, Paper Pianos, commissioned by Alarm Will Sound, was performed at The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center following its 2023 premiere at EMPAC.
Kouyoumdjian’s residencies include Buffalo String Works, Alarm Will Sound/The Mizzou International Composers Festival, Roulette/The Jerome Foundation, Montalvo Arts Center, EMPAC, and Exploring the Metropolis. Her music has been described as “eloquently scripted" and "emotionally wracking” by The New York Times and as "politically fearless" and "the most harrowing moments on stage at any New York performance" by New York Music Daily. In her work as a composer, orchestrator, and music editor for film, she has collaborated on a diverse array of motion pictures, including writing the original score for the documentary An Act of Worship (Capital K Pictures and PBS’s POV Docs) and orchestrating the soundtrack to The Place Beyond the Pines (Focus Features).
Kouyoumdjian holds a D.M.A. and M.A. in composition from Columbia University, where she studied primarily with Zosha Di Castri, Georg Friedrich Haas, Fred Lerdahl, and George Lewis; an M.A. in Scoring for Film & Multimedia from New York University; and a B.A. in Music Composition from the University of California, San Diego, where she studied with Chaya Czernowin, Steven Kazuo Takasugi, Anthony Davis, Steven Schick, and Chinary Ung.
Dedicated to new music advocacy, Kouyoumdjian is a Co-Founder of the annual new music conference New Music Gathering, served as the founding Executive Director of contemporary music ensemble Hotel Elefant, and served as Co-Artistic Director of Alaska's new music festival Wild Shore New Music.
As an avid educator, Kouyoumdjian is the Associate Professor of Composition for Collaborative Media at Mannes School of Music at The New School; she has previously been on faculty at Columbia University, the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University, Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Brooklyn College's Feirstein School of Cinema, Mannes Prep, and the New York Philharmonic's Very Young Composers program. Kouyoumdjian is proud to have her music published by Schott's PSNY and is based in Brooklyn, NY
Pictured above: Kouyoumdjian's father and aunts in Lebanon
Headshot by Desmond White with artistic treatment by Osheen Harruthoonyan
Headshot by Desmond White with artistic treatment by Osheen Harruthoonyan