Rhiannon Giddens’s “Reflektor”Festival
Sat, Nov 28 2026
3:30 pm
Elbphilharmonie Kleiner SaalPlatz der Deutschen Einheit 4Hamburg, 20457
The Elbphilharmonie Hamburg presents Mayrig, Karen Ouzounian and Lembit Beecher’s duo recital program, as part of Rhiannon Giddens’s “Reflektor”Festival.
An immersive and intimate program centered on the human voice, Mayrig (“mother” in Armenian) is a 60-minute show created by Karen Ouzounian and Lembit Beecher for cello with electronics, piano and vocals. Through audio stories and soundscapes, the voices of Karen’s mother and grandmother are interwoven with original arrangements of Armenian music of her family’s past home of Anatolia, songs and stories drawn from their post-genocide home of Lebanon, and the beloved music of Charles Aznavour. New compositions by Beecher, Ouzounian, Layale Chaker, Nathalie Joachim and Niloufar Nourbakhsh expand upon themes of generational transmission, rootedness and uprootedness, with music teeming with passion and celebration, resilience and rage. Opening and closing the program is Marin Marais’s Les Voix Humaines, music from hundreds of years ago providing a window into the present. Through the specifics of family history Mayrig creates an absorbing world of memory and association, leading the audience to an experience that is universal and shared, allowing space to consider the layers of meaning and history contained within music, and the twisting paths that have led us all to this time and place.