Paper Pianos

Paper Pianos is the world premiere recording of Mary Kouyoumdjian’s evening-length documentary work, created with writer and director Nigel Maister and performed by Alarm Will Sound, conducted by Alan Pierson. Integrating recorded interviews with refugees and refugee resettlement workers, the piece centers four voices: pianist Milad Yousufi (Afghanistan), who fled Taliban persecution for pursuing music and inspired the work’s title by practicing on paper piano keys; Getachew “Gee-Gee” Bashir (Ethiopia); Hani Ali (Somalia); and Akil Aljaysh (Iraq). Their testimony, in dialogue with live performance — and, in staged productions, projections by Kevork Mourad — traces dislocation, longing, and resettlement across six movements.

The work was a finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Music. It premiered at EMPAC in Troy, New York, in February 2023, where the recording was made. Cantaloupe Music released the album on August 7, 2026; artist proceeds from sales support the International Rescue Committee. The digital booklet with the full album notes is available online.

Entered for the GRAMMY® Awards:

• Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance — Alarm Will Sound
• Best Contemporary Classical Composition — Kouyoumdjian/Maister: Paper Pianos
• Best Engineered Album, Classical — Daniel Neumann & Bernd Klug
• Best Album Notes — Mary Kouyoumdjian & Nigel Maister
• Best Album Cover — Nigel Maister & Mary Kouyoumdjian

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a socially urgent multimedia work melding music and audio documentary with first-person refugee testimony to explore how music offers solace under displacement.

amongst the most important that I will ever play

• Alarm Will Sound
• Alan Pierson, conductor
• Music by Mary Kouyoumdjian
• Text by Nigel Maister, edited from interviews by Maister and Kouyoumdjian
• Recorded interviews and electronics by Mary Kouyoumdjian
• Projection design and animation by Kevork Mourad
• Produced by Mary Kouyoumdjian and Gavin Chuck
• Recorded and mixed by Daniel Neumann
• Mastered by Bernd Klug
• Album notes by Mary Kouyoumdjian and Nigel Maister
• Cover art by Nigel Maister and Mary Kouyoumdjian
• Recorded at EMPAC (Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center), Troy, NY
• Cantaloupe Music CA21223