about
Chora Gavit: A Score for Moving Bodies is an experimental spatial music performance for the opening ceremony of the Golden Apricot International Film Festival.
Rather than performing on a stage, musicians are dispersed throughout the foyer, each becoming an individual sound source inside a carefully composed musical ecosystem.
Rather than performing on a stage, musicians are dispersed throughout the foyer, each becoming an individual sound source inside a carefully composed musical ecosystem.
Project worked with the building's natural reverberation. Instruments remained at a low volume, allowing individual sounds to travel through the foyer, overlap, disappear, and reappear elsewhere.
Visitors move freely through the space, creating their own unique listening experience with every step.
Visitors move freely through the space, creating their own unique listening experience with every step.
collaboration
The performance brought together students and recent graduates of the Komitas State Conservatory, with the composition created by Conservatory professors Sergey Umroyan and Aram Hovhannisyan.
For the young musicians, Chora Gavit became a hands-on introduction to experimental performance — an opportunity to work beyond the traditional concert format, explore spatial composition, and experience new relationships between musician, audience, sound, and space.
Created for the opening of Golden Apricot, the composition invited people to enter the festival not through a conventional concert, but through a shared space that could be crossed, inhabited, and listened to.
For the young musicians, Chora Gavit became a hands-on introduction to experimental performance — an opportunity to work beyond the traditional concert format, explore spatial composition, and experience new relationships between musician, audience, sound, and space.
Created for the opening of Golden Apricot, the composition invited people to enter the festival not through a conventional concert, but through a shared space that could be crossed, inhabited, and listened to.
composers
Aram Hovhannisyan
Aram is a composer of contemporary music active on both local and international stages, collaborating with leading festivals, ensembles, and soloists. Since 2017, he has directed the Crossroads Festival and founded Ensemble Assonance in Yerevan, contributing to the development of Armenia's contemporary music scene. Since 2018, he has been affiliated with the Yerevan Komitas State Conservatory, where he serves as Vice-Rector for Academic and International Affairs and teaches composition.
Sergey Umroyan
Also known as URMIA, is an Armenian composer and sound artist focused on electro-acoustic composition and contemporary music. He is the co-founder of Ensemble Assonance, as well as Armenian National Music and Amara Publishing. His work explores the relationship between sound, texture, and movement, blending acoustic and electronic environments. In 2025, his ballet Ikona was staged at the Bolshoi Theatre and other major theatres in Russia.
Andriesh Gandrabur
Composer, sound designer, and educator working at the intersection of sound art, media, and performance. Founder of the Sound Art and Sound Design program at HSE School of Design.
partners
Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival is an annual international film festival held in Yerevan, Armenia. Founded in 2004, it brings together filmmakers, artists, and audiences from Armenia and around the world through film screenings, premieres, talks, and special cultural programs.
https://gaiff.am/
https://gaiff.am/
Yerevan State Conservatory (YSC) after Komitas was founded in 1921 as a music studio and re-founded two years later as a higher musical education institution.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Armenian professional performing culture was shaped. It was represented by the graduates of Russian and European conservatories. Violinist Hovhanness Nalbandyan, (St. Petersburg Conservatory and Berlin Musikhochschule), singer M.Akimova (Leipzig Conservatory), musicologist M.Aghayan (St. Petersburg and Moscow Conservatories), singer A.Shahmuradyan (Conservatoire de Paris) etc.
The founder and first rector of conservatory was famous Armenian composer and widely educated musician and public figure Romanos Melikyan (Saints-Petersburg Conservatory graduate)
https://conservatory.am
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Armenian professional performing culture was shaped. It was represented by the graduates of Russian and European conservatories. Violinist Hovhanness Nalbandyan, (St. Petersburg Conservatory and Berlin Musikhochschule), singer M.Akimova (Leipzig Conservatory), musicologist M.Aghayan (St. Petersburg and Moscow Conservatories), singer A.Shahmuradyan (Conservatoire de Paris) etc.
The founder and first rector of conservatory was famous Armenian composer and widely educated musician and public figure Romanos Melikyan (Saints-Petersburg Conservatory graduate)
https://conservatory.am
weekly news
institution
foundation
network
