Loading Events
  • This event has passed.

« All Events

Luys i Luso: A Cinematic Journey through Armenian Music

24/03/2017 @ 11:00 - 30/04/2017 @ 17:00

24 March – 30 April 2017

Original Music: Tigran Hamasyan
Performed by: Tigran Hamasyan & Yerevan State Chamber Choir
Film & Editing: Emily Mkrtichian & Alex Igidbashian
Animation & Sound Design: Studio Ondé – Clément Destephen,
Natalia Sookias & Jacques-André Dupont

Sound Post-Production: Ksenija Ladic
Producer: Emily Mkrtichian
Technical Direction: Natalia Sookias

This is a 35-minute, 3 channel audio-visual installation. It features 3 life-sized screens with a combined length of nearly 50 ft that surround the audience on all sides. It uses projections, animations and sound design to immerse its audience in the journey and the music – it gives you a full body experience and transfers you to place outside of the exhibition space.

In 2015, 100 years after genocide forced Armenians from their homes in Ottoman Turkey, a young Armenian musician made a sonic pilgrimage back to these lands. This musical journey was part of jazz prodigy Tigran Hamasyan’s Luys i Luso project – sacred Armenian music from the 5th – 20th centuries, re-imagined and rearranged for piano and voices by Hamasyan himself. Hamasyan was joined by the Yerevan State Chamber Choir, and together they traveled over 2,000 miles, giving 12 concerts in 3 countries. The vision of the pilgrimage was to breath new life into these churches and lands with sound and music.

Hamasyan and the choir were accompanied on the tour by Armenian-American filmmakers Emily Mkrtichian & Alex Igidbashian who documented the locations and concerts. The filmmakers, in collaboration with Berlin based Studio Ondé and Hamasyan himself, created an audio-visual installation from the images and recordings they collected. This installation reimagines the visual, sound and sensory experience of these intimate performances using projection technologies, sound design, and animations that transform spaces into living, breathing digital recreations of the Luys i Luso tour.

Visitors will be able to see, hear and feel the power of Hamasyan’s performances and their respective environments as though they have traveled back in time to the locations themselves.

“This project grew out of a question after Tigran’s Luys i Luso tour through historical Armenia in 2015. How can we share with people the experience of watching sacred Armenian music being performed among the ruins of Ani – the first concert to happen there in 1,000 years? How can I show you what it was like to hear Tigran’s piano and the choir’s voices echo around the walls of Akhtamar monastery and out onto the waters of Lake Van? We had to get creative & innovative.” Emily Mkrtichian

Emily Mkrtichian and Alex Igidbashian are Armenian-American filmmakers exploring the themes of history, memory, and place through documentary. Collectively, their films have travelled to festivals all over the globe and been broadcast on major European channels. After meeting in Armenia, Emily and Alex began to collaborate on films that explored place using memory and image. They recently finished post-production on Traversed – a highly visual, creative documentary about how the past, present, and future are all colliding in Armenia. Luys i Luso has been their second collaboration, pushing the filmmakers into the world of multi-media installation and performance.

Ondé is a young creative studio based in Berlin. Their artistic approach is founded on the use of projection mapping and sound design as a scenographic element in installation, performance and video. In 2015 they created projection mapping for the organ of the Royal Festival Hall in London, designing the scenography for a 1-hr music production. Their works have shown in Austria, Lebanon, Italy, Armenia, France, Switzerland, Germany, England and USA. Ondé is composed of Clément Destephen, Natalia Sookias & Jacques-André Dupont.

www.studioonde.com

Panel: Luys i Luso – Revisiting Sacred Armenian Sites and Music

Friday, 21 April
18:00 Emily Mkrtichian and Alex Igidbashian – the filmmakers of Luys i Luso Project
19:00 Aram Kerovpyan – musician and musicologist, expert on Armenian church music

Luys i Luso is based on the musical pilgrimage of Armenian jazz prodigy Tigran Hamasyan who has re-imagined and rearranged sacred Armenian music from the 5th – 20th centuries for piano and voices. Hamasyan, together with the Yerevan State Chamber Choir, traveled over 2,000 miles, giving 12 concerts in ancient sites of 3 countries, including the Armenian churches in Turkey.

The Armenian-American filmmakers Emily Mkrtichian & Alex Igidbashian accompanied this musical journey, documented the concerts and, in collaboration with Berlin based Studio Ondé and Hamasyan himself, created an artistic audio-visual installation from the images and recordings. Mkrtichian and Igidbashian will be speaking about the creation of their piece: from their time filming with Hamasyan in ancient Armenian monasteries throughout Armenia and Turkey, to using new medias to recreate the transformative experience of hearing re-imagined sacred music in these historical architectures — and bringing it to spaces around the globe.

Sacred or religious music in general, develops through a long historical period, constituting musically and symbolically ordered unities, with defined certain functions and meanings and their transference requires “time” and “patience”. Aram Kerovpyan who councelled Hamasyan on Armenian church music and has been working on introducing it to a wider public in Paris will talk about the intriguing practice of transmission and transformation of this rich tradition.

Mkrtichian & Igidbashian will talk in English, the summary will be provided in Turkish. Kerovpyan will talk in Turkish.

Press

24.4.2017
Hamişden Sesler
Açık Radyo

21.4.2017
Ermeni dinî mekânları ve müziği paneli bu akşam
Agos

1.4.2017
Luys i Luso: A Cinematic Journey through Armenian Music
Cornucopia Magazine

24.3.2017
Tigran Hamasyan’la zamanda yolculuk
Agos

Details

Start:
24/03/2017 @ 11:00
End:
30/04/2017 @ 17:00
Event Category:

Venue

Depo İstanbul
DEPO / Tütün Deposu Lüleci Hendek Caddesi No.12 Tophane
İstanbul, 34425 Turkey
Phone:
+90 (212) 292 39 56 - 57