Kronos Quartet & Mary Kouyoumdjian: Witness
Digital | CD | Vinyl
Out on 14th March 2025
Louder Than Warfare Radio’s Adam Brady opinions the newest album from the Kronos Quartet, its collaboration with Mary Kouyoumdjian, Witness; an album that focuses on the Lebanese Civil Warfare and the Armenian Genocide.
It’s alright for me. I’m a 40-something white male from the UK, with the automated privileges that include being a 40-something white male from the UK. I can hint no generational trauma nor have I confronted a civil conflict or been topic to what can solely be euphemistically referred to as “inhabitants switch”.
I suppose that’s why I stated it was “ambition or hubris” once I launched the album’s second single and introduced I’d be reviewing this album for the positioning. I’m not Armenian; I’m not Lebanese. However I’m, I hope, an individual with empathy so it’s an honour to aim a evaluate of Witness, by Kronos Quartet & Mary Kouyoumdjian.
Kronos Quartet has been in existence since 1973, and in that point has amassed practically 50 studio albums. Helmed by David Harrington since inception, its rotating membership sees his violin joined by Gabriela Diaz (violin), Ayane Kozasa (viola), and Paul Wiancko (cello).
Mary Kouyoumdjian is a first-generation Armenian-American composer and 2024 Pulitzer Prize In Music finalist. She has obtained commissions from our bodies such because the New York Philharmonic, Carnegie Corridor, and Roomful of Enamel. A tireless particular person, she holds a number of qualifacations from quite a few universities, is a free-speech activist, and co-founded New Music Gatherings. One of many hallmarks of her work is the mixing of spoken phrase testimony and area recordings.
Over a decade within the making, Witness is an element threnody, half documentary to and of the victims of the Lebanese Civil Warfare, which spanned from 1975-1990, and the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1917 – each of that are vital historic sides of Kouyoumdjian’s identification.
The album’s title is a direct reference to the witness testimonies collated by Kouyoumdjian, be they interviewing her family and friends (the Lebanese Civil Warfare) or from already present accounts from survivors (the Armenian Genocide).
Opening observe Groung (Cranes) is an association of a standard Armenian people track that Harrington found and offered to Kouyoumdjian upon assembly her, that she was beforehand unaware of. Whereas the model offered featured the vocals of Zabelle Panosian, the association right here reinterprets the phrases into an instrumental; a track that turned an anthem for the Armenian diaspora given new life and relevancy for the 21st Century.
Relying upon your format of alternative, Bombs of Beirut (written in 2014) is a motion of three sections: I) Earlier than the Warfare; II) The Warfare; III) After The Warfare. Haunting strings start as the primary voice states “I all the time fantasise about Lebanon earlier than the Civil Warfare”.
Devoted to her household, of Bombs Of Beirut she says: “Impressed by family members who grew up throughout the Lebanese Civil Warfare, it’s my hope that Bombs Of Beirut gives a sonic image of what day-to-day life is like in a turbulent Center East—not filtered by means of the information and media, however by means of the actual phrases of actual individuals.”
Every voice is given its personal motif that turns into an additional personalised layer to the candid accounts. With every written observe, with every stroke of the bow, you’re transported to the Center East’s Mediterranean coast – to Lebanon’s capital, Beirut. The outline of Beirut being a haven, a “little Paris” is, with hindsight, heartbreaking by way of what was misplaced. Because the recollections progress in time, the timbre and tone morphs from joyful to fearful, from fearful to terrified and chaotic. There are various cues that add to the stress, none extra so than when the primary voice talks of weapons being given to combatants which can be taller than their handlers; the downward slide encapsulating in successive notes the downfall of Beirut from a vibrant metropolis to a warzone.
It’s in direction of the top of the second motion that essentially the most arresting and discordant strings, which have elevated in quantity and pitch and that are greater than efficient in conveying the catastrophe of the conflict, are changed by a area recording taken by a civilian caught up within the conflict. Explosions, missiles and rockets, bombs, bullets, sirens, voices, falling rubble, and the tolling of a bell – all captured contemporaneously, transposed to at present with out dropping poignancy or horror.
The newest piece is third: 2020’s I Haven’t The Phrases which was written on 31st Might of that 12 months as a sonic journal entry. Early within the Covid-19 pandemic and fewer than every week after the homicide of George Floyd, Kouyoumdjian says that it was written “…throughout a time by which the world appeared to spin in direction of its darkest corners”.
Silent Cranes is the closing suite, cut up into 4 actions: I) slave to your voice; II) you didn’t reply; III) [with blood soaked feathers]; IV) you flew away. Like its even-numbered predecessor, it’s an audio-documentary piece that includes the testimony of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide. Written in 2015 to mark and commemorate the start of the Genocide, it completes the circle as it’s impressed by Groung, and every motion’s title comes straight from its lyrics.
The synergy between the notes as written by Kouyoumdjian and the notes as performed by the Quartet with the spoken phrases is as mesmeric as it’s horrific. As Victoria Mellian describes the homicide of quite a few relations, as Elise describes how a soldier minimize open a pregnant girl, as Haig talks concerning the Turkish rationale for killing youngsters, the music is plaintive, hopeless, and filled with terror.
These phrases, translated largely from Armenian to English, ought to – in ANY language – be a supply of disgrace for humanity. The music is a testomony to the indomitable inventive spirit and a supply of hope even when the notes should not.
The fourth motion, you flew away, closes the album with a poem by David Barsamian, an American-Armenian radio broadcaster and author. The ultimate line is “Our grandparents are singing, let’s end their songs”. Witness is simply the newest try and sing these songs and produce closure to one of many 20th Century’s darkest moments (Turkey to this present day nonetheless claims that the Armenian Genocide was not a genocide and was a authorized switch of individuals).
All through historical past there are numerous grandparents whose songs want ending:from the Russification of Ukrainian territory and inhabitants to the 7th October assaults in Israel; from the unlawful constructing of settlements in Palestinian Occupied Territory to the newest iteration of the Sudanese Civil Warfare, humanity’s worst facet is on fixed show.
Witness sheds mild on the horrors of the previous while sustaining a 21st Century relevancy, and it’s what makes this collaboration between the Kronos Quartet and Mary Kouyoumdjian extraordinary.
Extra info on the Kronos Quartet could be discovered right here.
Purchase the album right here
Phenotypic Recordings will donate its streaming proceeds from this album to Kooyrigs and the Lebanese Purple Cross and to help the Armenian and Lebanese communities.
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All phrases by Adam Brady, who hosts The Adam Brady Present on Louder Than Warfare Radio. You could find his writer’s archive right here
Press photographs provided, credit score to Osheen Harruthoonyan, Desmond White, Lenny Gonzalez
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