Mary Kouyoumdjian

Mary Kouyoumdjian (born 1983) is an Armenian-American composer and documentarian based in Brooklyn, NY. She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Music in 2024 for her work Paper Pianos and was nominated for Best Opera Recording for her album Adoration at the 68th Annual Grammy Awards in 2026. Early life and education Kouyoumdjian was born in the San Francisco Bay Area and grew up there. She is a first generation Armenian-American from a family directly affected by the Lebanese Civil War and Armenian Genocide. Kouyoumdjian studied at University of California, San Diego (B.A. in Music Composition); New York University with a focus on Scoring for Film & Multimedia (M.A.); and Columbia University (D.M.A. and M.A.). Primary teachers include Zosha Di Castri, Georg Friedrich Haas, Fred Lerdahl, George Lewis, Chaya Czernowin, Steven Kazuo Takasugi, Anthony Davis, Steven Schick, and Chinary Ung. Career Kouyoumdjian has been commissioned by Bang on a Can, Carnegie Hall, the Kronos Quartet, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Philharmonic, OPERA America, and many others. Her work has been recorded by artists such as The Merian Ensemble (members of the Atlanta Symphony), Kronos Quarte