{"id":37833,"date":"2020-11-26T13:45:53","date_gmt":"2020-11-26T18:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/?p=37833"},"modified":"2020-11-30T16:55:40","modified_gmt":"2020-11-30T21:55:40","slug":"lara-sarkissian-uses-electronic-music-to-highlight-her-armenian-heritage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/lara-sarkissian-uses-electronic-music-to-highlight-her-armenian-heritage\/","title":{"rendered":"Lara Sarkissian Uses Electronic Music to Highlight Her Armenian Heritage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/lara_bw_006-1024x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-37839\"\/><figcaption>Lara Sarkissian at Matosavank Monastery, Armenia. Photo Credit: Margos Margossian<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I always wanted to push Armenian sounds,&#8221; says <a href=\"https:\/\/larasarkissian.bandcamp.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Lara Sarkissian<\/a>. &#8220;I always thought of the future and how I could push Armenian sounds into the future in very experimental and untraditional ways and how that can fit within this electronic music and electronic dance music.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sarkissian is a San Francisco-based producer, composer and DJ, as well has one-half of the duo behind the party series and record label <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/clubchaibayarea\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Club Chai<\/a>. In her work, she likes to manipulate the sounds of traditional Armenian instruments, like the duduk, a woodwind made of apricot wood, and incorporate them into electronic music productions. In late October, &#8220;Fortress in the Clouds,&#8221; an intense techno track, appeared on <a href=\"https:\/\/sistersofsound.bandcamp.com\/album\/sos-music-vol-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">SOS Music Vol. 1<\/a>, a compilation from L.A.-based label SOS Music to benefit Transgender Law Center, Downtown Women&#8217;s Center and Women&#8217;s Refugee Commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"300\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" allow=\"autoplay\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/playlists\/994163905&#038;color=%23ff5500&#038;auto_play=false&#038;hide_related=false&#038;show_comments=true&#038;show_user=true&#038;show_reposts=false&#038;show_teaser=true&#038;visual=true\"><\/iframe><div style=\"font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/larasarkissian\" title=\"Lara Sarkissian\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Lara Sarkissian<\/a> \u00b7 <a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/larasarkissian\/sets\/lara-sarkissian-tracks\" title=\"Lara Sarkissian - Releases\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Lara Sarkissian &#8211; Releases<\/a><\/div><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s interesting to experiment with these old and ancient sounds and have your take on it,&#8221; says Sarkissian. &#8220;It&#8217;s like having a conversation with it in your own way.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On November 26, her soundscape for &#8220;Thresholds,&#8221; a collaboration with video artist Jemma Woolmore commissioned by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.berlin-ism.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Institute for Sound and Music Berlin<\/a> for the ISM Hexadome, will be released on vinyl. &#8220;I was really inspired by the concepts behind aural architecture. I used a lot of field recordings in Armenian churches and monasteries,&#8221; says Sarkissian of the project. &#8220;I really love how Armenian monasteries are built in a certain way to house certain kinds of sounds, like the choir with the voice and how it bounces to the ceiling and back, kind of like you&#8217;re speaking to God and the powers above.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That inspiration suited the ISM Hexadome, a 360-degree audio-visual installation that exhibited in Berlin, Montreal and San Francisco, as well as MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts, where the recording for the release stems. &#8220;I looked at this dome structure for ISM as, in parallel, like a monastery. I thought that it would be really cool to take these samples, like these Armenian environmental sounds or these sounds that I recorded in Armenian monasteries and at my church in San Francisco, and use it in this space and create a whole contemporary electronic score around that.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sarkissian started out as a drummer in high school. In college, at UC Berkeley, she gravitated towards film and was making her own experimental shorts. Then she took a sound design class while studying abroad in Copenhagen and was impressed with how sound could tell a story. &#8220;I think that&#8217;s when I put the camera down and became more focused on sound and storytelling,&#8221; she says. &#8220;That&#8217;s when I started teaching myself Ableton.&#8221; She began producing her own tracks and making edits while also learning how to DJ.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She was inspired by artists of different ethnic backgrounds who were incorporating their culture into electronic music. &#8220;I&#8217;m Armenian, but I&#8217;m living in diaspora. There&#8217;s another kind of Armenian culture that exists here,&#8221; Sarkissian explains. &#8220;A part of that means being in dialogue and being around other cultures and other diasporas and learning about each other&#8217;s struggles and oppression and building solidarity and coalition from that way. I did see that there is a way that you can do that with music and I really enjoyed that.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2016, she and collaborator 8ullentina launched Club Chai as a monthly event series. They started with warehouse parties bringing together San Francisco and Oakland-based artists, with an emphasis on women-identified, non-binary, LGBTQ and POC artists. Through Club Chai, they built up an international network of artists and began touring in the U.K. &#8220;I think that a lot of artists and music in general stays within our Bay Area bubble,&#8221; says Sarkissian. &#8220;Our goal is to connect that with our global audience and people who are doing similar work in other places.&#8221;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In August, Club Chai landed a residency on the popular, global <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nts.live\/shows\/guests\/episodes\/lara-sarkissian-lucia-kagramanyan-special-23rd-november-2020?fbclid=IwAR38JXB20ikPoVdcEw0vwllP352zYIjg9I89RkpCBk0NP3S539k6j0ebfoE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">online radio station NTS<\/a>, where you can now hear them monthly. For the October show, Sarkissian focused primarily on Armenian music to call attention to a mounting human rights crisis. On September 27, Artsakh, an ethnic Armenian region in the South Caucuses known internationally as Nagorno-Karabakh, was attacked by Azerbaijan. That led to a six-week battle in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic where <a href=\"https:\/\/www.halotrust.org\/latest\/halo-updates\/stories\/from-the-frontline-nagorno-karabakh\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">civilian areas of Artsakh<\/a> were shelled and tens of thousands of people were displaced. An agreement brokered by Russia brought the fighting to a halt, but it also transferred part of this indigenous Armenian land back into the hands of Azerbaijan, leading to further <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxla.com\/video\/871072?fbclid=IwAR2GjzeU_R8p-oWU3BD9_9btxXAT0AgkmbH1SZwcye7JK0iNoeb2hwqPi8U\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">displacement of people<\/a> and a growing concern for the future of Armenian <a href=\"https:\/\/asiatimes.com\/2020\/11\/cultural-erasure-may-spark-next-nagorno-karabakh-war\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">cultural landmarks<\/a> in the region. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For Sarkissian, who has taught in both Armenia and Artsakh, this hit close to home. &#8220;I think that I was, personally, in a really frustrated place,&#8221; says Sarkissian. She wanted to let the music community know what was happening, but wasn&#8217;t sure of how to do that. &#8220;Obviously, music brings people together and understanding stories of other people&#8217;s culture through sound is a huge thing,&#8221; she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The set included multiple generations of Armenian artists, as well as non-Armenian music. &#8220;I wanted to channel grief and solace and have this place where we&#8217;re allowed to sit in sadness,&#8221; she explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sarkissian says that this devastating time for Armenians has shown how important it is to have artists and scholars,&nbsp;&#8220;people who are creating this intersectional language,&#8221; bring the ongoing conflict into the light. In the long run, she says, &#8220;I think that kind of language is what&#8217;s going to help us link with other communities.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Follow Lara Sarkissian on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/larasarkissian.page\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Facebook<\/a> for ongoing updates.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;I always wanted to push Armenian sounds,&#8221; says Lara Sarkissian. &#8220;I always thought of the future and how I could push Armenian sounds into the future in very experimental and untraditional ways and how that can fit within this electronic music and electronic dance music.&#8221; Sarkissian is a San Francisco-based producer, composer and DJ, as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":37839,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[573,305],"tags":[11353,11354,11352,11351],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/lara_bw_006-scaled-e1606252858154.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37833"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37833"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38322,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37833\/revisions\/38322"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}