Luys I Luso installation to premiere in LA Little Armenia district

On April 29th, in partnership with the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs & Sosé & Allen’s Legacy Foundation, the American premiere of the Luys I Luso Installation will take place in Little Armenia, Hollywood.

The event will feature an outdoor multi-media installation projected onto 3 life-sized screens, accompanied by a live performance from Tigran Hamasyan, Asbarez reports.

The vision behind Luys I Luso (meaning Light from Light) began when Armenian musical prodigy Tigran Hamasyan and his colleagues started researching & transcribing ancient musical manuscripts preserved at the Matenadaran in Yerevan, Armenia. This is one of the world’s richest depositories of ancient manuscripts and books, spanning subjects such as history, philosophy, medicine, literature, art and cosmography. After nearly three years of research and preparation, the ancient hymns were brought back to life as Hamasyan, in collaboration with the Yerevan State Chamber Choir, recorded an album of sacred music from the texts sung by the choir and accompanied by Tigran’s celebrated improvisational style on the piano.

The album was released in 2015, 100 years after more than one million Armenians were killed  forced from their homes in Ottoman Turkey. To commemorate this, and to celebrate the birthplace of this ancient music, Hamasyan and the Yerevan State Chamber Choir set out on a pilgrimage through historical Armenia to perform the sacred sounds of Luys I Luso at the most significant epicenters of Armenian culture. They traveled over 2,000 miles, giving 12 concerts in 3 countries. Some of these sites included monasteries and ruins in the cities of Ani, Kars, and Akhtamar Island.

The tour was documented by Armenian-American filmmakers Emily Mkrtichian & Alex Igidbashian. The filmmakers, in collaboration with Studio Ondé in Berlin and Hamasyan, created an audio-visual installation from the images and recordings they collected. This installation re-imagines the visual, sound, and sensory experience of these intimate performances using projection technologies, sound design, and animations that transform historic or forgotten spaces around the world into digital recreations of the Luys I Luso tour.

After exhibiting the Luys I Luso Installation in Munich, Germany, and Armenia, the immersive multimedia experience will be set outside, at the corner of Hollywood Blvd. and Western Ave. in the Little Armenia district of Los Angeles, and will be free to the public. Beginning at 7pm, the show will run several times accompanied by live performances from Hamasyan, continuing until midnight.

This installation will be the first project supported by the Arts Activation Fund, a new program created by Mayor Garcetti’s office and the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, aimed to support creative community projects that bring a new vibrancy to public spaces across Los Angeles.