Bringing new pieces to life has always been at the core of where I find joy in music— not only for the excitement of creating new repertoire, but also in the truly special, meaningful back-and-forth process of working closely with a composer to make something personal together. I love how new music can bridge different people and stories, and I have found immense fulfillment in prioritizing and seeking out collaborations with composers to explore what we want to share with one another, and with the world.

Below are a couple of current and recent projects/pieces with these thoughts in mind. Each came to be through a desire for connection and an urge to make space for stories, works, and goals we communally find crucial in our lives as artists and people.

“Komitas and Friends”: Armenian folk music, then and now

May 2025 @ Lincoln Center - Concert Program

Commissioned pieces:

Hannah Ishizaki - Lorik Jan (Dear Little Quail)

after Քելե, քելե / Kele Kele (Strolling)

Elise Arancio - The Little Partridge

after Կաքավիկի երգը / Kakaviki Yerku (Song of the Little Partridge)

Sofia Ouyang - Antuni, voiced (for clarinet and fixed-media)

after Անտունի / Antuni (Homeless)

Kunal Gala - Variations on Two Armenian Folk Songs Concerning Mountains

after Լուսնակը սարի տակին / Lusnaku Sari Dakin (Moonlight Under the Mountain) and սար, սար (Mountain, mountain)

Christian Wray - Ampel A

after Երկինքն ամպել ա / Yerkinkn Ampel A (The Sky is Cloudy)

Generously funded by grants from Juilliard and Columbia University’s Armenian Center, “Komitas and Friends” began as a cultural exchange project I led for five Juilliard peers to write five pieces for clarinet and piano, each one based on a different Armenian folk song I grew up with as a member of the Armenian diaspora. Komitas and Friends was meant to celebrate the interdisciplinary, ever-changing legacy of folk songs deeply rooted in Armenian culture even today.

These songs survive in a written form through music notated and transcribed by Komitas Vardapet, a pioneering ethnomusicologist, composer, and priest who gathered thousands of folk songs at the turn of the 20th century, immortalizing folk tunes for generations to come after much devastation and loss during the Armenian Genocide. After a back and forth with the composers in first getting to know these songs, their personal significance with me, and that of the larger Armenian community, each composer then chose one that resonated with them and transformed it into a piece of their choosing, finding a way for it to speak to their background and compositional language as well— focusing on the text, the harmonic language, and/or historical legacy and context of these songs. The resulting pieces celebrate the vast range of emotions and complex contradictions within and beyond this community, drawing on the universal darkness of glimpses into exile and profound loss, as well as the innocent joy of folk songs I recall singing in my school choir.

Each of these five work was premiered at Lincoln Center’s David Rubenstein Atrium in May 2025, through a larger program celebrating the past and future of these folk songs— including their original form for voice sung in Armenian, as well as in classical and jazz transcriptions that have kept these melodies alive in various communities throughout the last 100 years. In organizing these commissions, recordings, and performance, I was also honored to receive the 2025 Robert Sherman Award for Music Education and Community Outreach, and to speak about this project on WQXR’s Young Artist Showcase.

The five commissions, including the folk songs they were each based on, were recently recorded at Oktaven audio with pianist Lucas Amory— the audio and video for the performances will be available shortly!

Collab w/ EMRE ŞENER: 2025 THEO MUSGRAVE COMMISSIONING PRIZE

This last fall, composer Emre Şener and I recently received the inaugural Theo Musgrave Commissioning Prize at Juilliard, a new fund devoted to supporting collaborations between instrumentalists and composers studying in the Music Division.

Our accepted proposal for a work was a ~13-15 minute duo for clarinet and piano bridging songs and texts from our respective cultures. Emre is in the second year of his M.M., and we have been eager to work together to collaborate on a piece since meeting last year. Upon hearing and speaking about “Komitas and Friends,” Emre and I began discussing a potential piece aiming to connect music and texts from our respective and neighboring countries. As Emre is from Turkey, our countries have a history and unfortunate current reality of war, turmoil, and disconnect. We bonded over how much our cultures still share in the songs and texts we, and our parents and grandparents, grew up with. Our piece will be made up of 3-5 short movements each inspired by a different song/text from this collection of cultures in our region that shares many of these very current tensions, but also deeply intertwined histories and traditions– including but not limited to Armenian, Turkish, Kurdish, Persian, and Georgian folk music/texts.

This piece will be completed and performed in May 2026 at Juilliard, in a joint recital comprised of related works by Emre as well as some of the Komitas and Friends commissions from last year.

Additional RECENT CHAMBER/SOLO PremierES

*denotes commission / working with composer on piece

Chamber

Emre Şener: Traummaler (Dec. 2025)

Francisco Lucena Pais: Malmequer, Quatro Fados Perdidos* (Jul. 2025, YellowBarn Music Festival)

Artur Avanesov: Unruhig (Jan. 2025, recording for “Modulation Necklace” Armenian Music CD)

Donald Crocket Clarinet Quintet (Dec. 2024)

Elise Arancio: body, remember* (Nov. 2025, Juilliard Choreographers and Composers)

Timo Andres: House Work* (Aug. 2021)

Bram Fisher: Gossamer and “… with the wrench” (Jun. 2019, YellowBarn Young Artists Program))

Aida Shirazi: Blood Moon* (Apr. 2020)

Artashes Kartalyan: Lullaby for Patil* (Apr. 2020)

Tyson Gholston Davis: Of Sounds and Silences* (Jul. 2019, National Youth Orchestra)

Hannah Ishizaki: Sticks and Stone* (Jun. 2019, YellowBarn Young Artists Program))

Solo:

Upcoming: Ian Krouse Double Concerto for Violin and Clarinet (Apr. 2026, UCLA Philharmonia)

Michele Li: “Sour Grape” for solo clarinet (Jun. 2021, YellowBarn Young Artists Program)