JOSEPH BOHIGIAN, COMPOSER
Biography
Joseph Bohigian is a composer and performer of acoustic and electronic music. His work focuses on issues of memory, cultural reunification, and diaspora, drawing on his experiences as an Armenian-American raised in the Armenian exile community of Fresno, California. With a strong interest in reestablishing a relationship with lost elements of our past to better envision our future, he makes use of archival materials in his music, such as sound recordings, interviews, and written texts, synthesizing fragments of song lyrics and reviving ancient musical notations.
Bohigian’s music has been performed at the International Computer Music Conference (Limerick, Ireland), June in Buffalo, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Suoni Per Il Popolo (Montreal), New Music on the Point Festival, TENOR Conference (Melbourne), and Aram Khachaturian Museum Hall (Yerevan) by the Mivos Quartet, Decibel, Great Noise Ensemble, Argus Quartet, Fresno Summer Orchestra
Photo by Raffi Paul
Academy, and Playground Ensemble. He has received grants and fellowships from New Music USA, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, and the American Research Institute of the South Caucasus and a CD of his music was released on Other Minds Records in November 2023.
Joseph performs as a founding member of Ensemble Decipher, a group dedicated to working with vintage, contemporary, and emerging technologies. He has recently performed with Decipher at the International Computer Music Conference, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, Society of Electro-Acoustic Music Conference, and Network Music Festival. He has curated concerts of music by living Armenian composers with the Fresno State New Music Ensemble for the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide featured on NPR’s Here and Now and The California Report as well as for the Composer’s Voice Concert Series in New York, for which he was called a “triple-threat” by Time Out New York for his role as curator, composer, and performer. Bohigian also produces broadcasts of contemporary music for Music from Other Minds on KALW in San Francisco and interviews with composers on the Other Minds Podcast and the music/technology-focused series Decipher This!.
Bohigian holds a PhD and MA from Stony Brook University, where he studied with Nirmali Fenn, Matthew Barnson, Margaret Schedel, Perry Goldstein, and Dan Weymouth, and a BA from California State University Fresno, studying with Kenneth Froelich and Benjamin Boone. He has also spent time living in Armenia, where he studied with Artur Avanesov, did research at the Komitas Museum-Institute, and taught a laptop orchestra at the Komitas State Conservatory of Yerevan.
Short Biography
Joseph Bohigian is a composer and performer of acoustic and electronic music. His work focuses on issues of memory, cultural reunification, and diaspora, drawing on his experiences as an Armenian-American raised in the Armenian exile community of Fresno, California. With a strong interest in reestablishing a relationship with lost elements of our past to better envision our future, he makes use of archival materials in his music, such as sound recordings, interviews, and written texts, synthesizing fragments of song lyrics and reviving ancient musical notations. Bohigian’s music has been performed at the International Computer Music Conference (Limerick, Ireland), June in Buffalo, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Suoni Per Il Popolo (Montreal), New Music on the Point Festival, TENOR Conference (Melbourne), and Aram Khachaturian Museum Hall (Yerevan) by the Mivos Quartet, Decibel, Great Noise Ensemble, Argus Quartet, Fresno Summer Orchestra Academy, and Playground Ensemble. He performs as a founding member of Ensemble Decipher, a group dedicated to working with vintage, contemporary, and emerging technologies.