Topouzian Wins Knights Art Challenge Award

 Armenian music and Kresge Artist Fellow Ara Topouzian is one of the winners of this year’s Knights Art Challenge Award--a community-wide contest funding cultural projects that engage and enrich Detroit. Topouzian will be awarded $12,000 for a documentary project he plans to produce celebrating the history of Armenian-American Music in Detroit. He was recognized on Tuesday, September 9th at an awards event at the Fillmore in downtown Detroit.The Knight Foundation invests in artistic excellence, funding arts projects that engage the Knight resident communities in collective cultural experiences. They look for innovative, high-quality ideas. Grantees represent emerging artists and organizations, as well as the oldest and most venerable institutions. The projects all have one thing in common: they enrich and engage the communities that produce them.

“Detroit has been home to more than 40,000 Armenians in the metro Detroit area since the turn of the 20th Century,” said Topouzian. “I want to show the public the important role Armenian musicians played in the development of the Detroit community. These musicians came from the ‘old country’ and brought with them folk songs and their identity to Detroit. This documentary is a way to honor their work and contributions to Motown.”

Detroit is home to an estimated 35,000 Armenians, many of whom fled persecution in the early half of the 20th century, and were drawn to Detroit by jobs in the auto industry. They brought along their traditions and music, which often describes simple village life and has been passed down through generations. The project will feature rare interviews and historic photographs—all narrated by Topouzian. Topouzian plays the Kanun – a 76-stringed laptop Middle Eastern harp. He has performed throughout the country both as a solo artist, as well as a member of Armenian and Middle Eastern ensembles and with renowned world music, jazz and fusion artists.  His music has been featured in several nationally aired PBS documentaries. In 2012, he performed as a guest soloist with the Virginia Commonwealth University Symphony performing an original concerto written for the Kanun.

As an Armenian born in America, the music Topouzian grew up listening to describes simple village life or love and has been passed down by generations. The music is his identity and tells a distinct story that he wants to pass on to the new Armenian generations so they never forget their heritage, as well as educate non-Armenian audiences that otherwise may never know about or hear the beautiful and rich music of Armenia.