Aram Bajakian

The music of guitarist and composer Aram Bajakian music has been called “a masterpiece” (fRoots, July 2017), “shape-shifting” (FreeJazzCollective, January 2017), and “sometimes delicate, sometimes punishing” (Chicago Reader, January 2018). As a guitarist, “the virtuosic jack of all trades” (Village Voice, May 2015) has toured extensively with Lou Reed, Diana Krall, Madeleine Peyroux, and John Zorn, in performing at many of the world’s greatest venues, including Carnegie Hall, Royal Albert Hall, the Acropolis, L’Olympia, as well as the Montreaux, Newport, Monterey and Antibes jazz festivals, among others. From 2018-2021 Bajakian served as the New Music Curator at Western Front in Vancouver, one of Canada’s leading artist-run centers for contemporary art and new music. Bajakian is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Ethnomusicology at UBC where his research focuses on the role of music in contemporary and historic Armenian communities.

Works showcased at MENA:

An Armenian Triptych: Retracing Our Steps
Animation
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Short
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11
 mins
An animated short film highlighting the power of artistic collaboration as a meaning-making tool in response to intergenerational trauma and the refusal of a people to be erased from history.