Fractal (2021) is a composition which sounds entirely consist of recordings made with metallic, plastic, wooden tools and paper on the internal metal bridge of Beirut Art Center.

Commissioned by Beirut Art Center in the framework of Micro-commissions no. 4: The Bridge Cuts Ever So Close to My Balcony with the support of 21dB

Fractal

Originally composed for clarinet and piano for Mais Darwazah's feature documentary entitled "My Love Awaits Me By The Sea"(2013) , Lonesome Heroes is performed here by Eurasian's Unity in a new arrangement by Alex Morsey.
Released in 2018 on Enja Records.

Caroline Thon - saxophone
Tamara Lukasheva – vocals 
Feruza Ochilova – voc, doira, dutar 
Negar Bouban – oud 
Veronika Todorova – accordion
Salman Gambarov – piano
Alex Morsey – bass, sou, euph, vocals
Bodek Janke – dr, perc, voc

Lonesome Heroes

Extract from a live improv concert in collaboration with Ensemble Modern at the Frankfurt Lab, September 11, 2021

The map of Beirut as a space for experimentation. 
The 12 musicians (11 from the Ensemble Modern and me on the piano) are positioned on stage according to the 12 districts of Beirut. And like any Beiruti citizen, each musician will have to negotiate their way through aleatoric (sonic/musical) decisions, creating in the process a real-time composition within the framework of the map. The opening and ending theme on the piano remain the same; But rather than suggesting a definitive representation of a piece, 12 Districts will be different each time it is performed, like an ever changing city soundscape where the social and cultural fabric constantly reinvents itself despite all the odds.

12 Districts_with Ensemble Modern (extract)

The premiere of Sediments was performed by the Danapris String Quartet from Ukraine during Musikprotokoll 2021 in Graz, Austria. This is an extract from the 12 min composition. 
The composition was commissioned by ORF musikprotokoll with the support of the Ukrainian Institute. 

Danapris String Quartet
Violin I : Andrii Pavlov
Violin II: Antonii Kedrovskyi
Viola: Ihor Zavhorodnii 
Cello: Viktor Rekalo

“Nul n’a jamais écrit ou peint, sculpté, modelé, construit, inventé, que pour sortir en fait de l’enfer.” Nobody ever wrote or painted, sculpted, modeled, built, invented, for any reason other than to exit from hell, says Antonin Artaud. Writing music may be the only way to stay “sane” when everything around is falling apart.
As the worst economic crisis in history continues to unravel in Lebanon, and the explosion of August 4, 2020 – the largest in a metropolitan area since WWII – left half of my city destroyed, I search for sediments, to parse through the emotional cobweb that such a disaster has engendered.

Sediments (extract)

Madrigal d'Essilio was first performed by the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart at the Eclat Festival for New Music in 2021. This is an extract from the 11 min composition, inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy, and Sayat Nova’s poem, Tamam Ashkhar (The Whole World).

Neue Vocalsolisten
Johanna Vargas / high soprano
Susanne Leitz-Lorey / soprano
Truike van der Poel / mezzo soprano
Daniel Gloger / countertenor
Martin Nagy / tenor
Guillermo Anzorena / baritone
Andreas Fischer / bass

Madrigal d'Essilio (extract)

A Bunker Fairy Tale was exhibited at the Project Biennial of Contemporary Art in Konjic, Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Biennial takes place in Facility D-0 ARK Underground, inside Tito’s atomic bunker that was held secret until the 1990's, now turned into a contemporary art museum.
This work is originally a 12 channel sound installation with a silent film projected on the wall in the radio communication room of the bunker. 

In this audible version, the 12 channels have been edited into stereo tracks.

(a conversation between A and P, in phonetic alphabet)

A: Excuse me, I was just wondering if you could help me find my way. 
P: Well that depends on where you want to go. You can start with one step back, then another step back, then all the way back to yesterday.
A: But I can’t go back to yesterday, I was a different person then! 
P: So you're completely lost. Where do you want to get to? 
A: It really doesn't matter...
P: Then it really doesn't matter which way you go.

A Bunker Fairy Tale is the story of an imagined encounter, inspired by James M. Barrie’s Peter Pan and Lewis Caroll’s Alice in Wonderland. It explores the concept of memory in a space that has not been affected by the passage of time, the ephemeral stage of childhood, regarded as a separate time and place, and the act of remembering as a way to reinvent the past.
Childhood is often portrayed as a safe refuge, a protected haven freed from future pressures and ordeals. Perhaps what it has in common with the medium of sound is that both can be intense but fleeting experiences that we lose as we grasp their significance. 
All that remains consist of visual traces of a memory that resemble the fiction and the power of fairy tales.
The images are comprised of 8mm footage from my family archive of a birthday party in 1975, the year in which the Lebanese civil war started.

Bunker Fairy Tale

From the feature documentary "My Love Awaits Me By The Sea", directed by Mais Darwazah (2013)
Clarinet: Paed Conca
Piano: Cynthia Zaven

Lonesome Heroes (from the soundtrack of My Love Awaits Me By The Sea)

Soundtrack for a video installation.
Fragments of radio communications accompany archival footage of a family from the 1960s and 70s.   
The current title of this work is inspired by Don De Lillo’s science fiction short story in which two astronauts receive unidentified radio signals while orbiting above an Earth torn apart by war. These radio signals are later revealed to have been old broadcasts from Earth.

Human Moments in WWIII

Lullaby For Traffic

Cello: Nariné Haroutyunian
Piano: Cynthia Zaven
Taken from the soundtrack of Gate #5, a feature documentary directed by Simon el Habre (2011)

Wasteland

pianos: 
Dušica Cajlan Wissel
Magda Mayas
Cynthia Zaven

Excerpts from rehearsals for Irtijal festival 2012

3 short improvised pieces for 3 prepared pianos (D. Cajlan / M. Mayas / C. Zaven)

http://soundcloud.com/icalondon/cynthia-zaven-morse-code

Morse code composition
for flute, accordion and electronics
Soundworks, ICA 2012

musicians/improvisers:
Flute: Alessandra Rombolà
Accordion: Esteban Algora

"...And that sin and love and fear are just sounds that people who never sinned nor loved nor feared have for what they never had and cannot have until they forgot the words ." W. Faulkner

.- -. -.. / - .... .- - / ... .. -. / .- -. -.. / .-.. --- ...- . / .- -. -.. / ..-. . .- .-. / .- .-. . / .--- ..- ... - / ... --- ..- -. -.. ... / - .... .- - / .--. . --- .--. .-.. . / .-- .... --- / -. . ...- . .-. / ... .. -. -. . -.. / -. --- .-. / .-.. --- ...- . -.. / -. --- .-. / ..-. . .- .-. . -.. / .... .- ...- . / ..-. --- .-. / .-- .... .- - / - .... . -.-- / -. . ...- . .-. / .... .- -.. / .- -. -.. / -.-. .- -. -. --- - / .... .- ...- . / ..- -. - .. .-.. / - .... . -.-- / ..-. --- .-. --. --- - / - .... . / .-- --- .-. -.. ... / .-.-.-




Writing music as a way to transfer a situation from mind to paper. To get rid of a torment, a moment, extract it from time, place it somewhere else and let others do whatever they want with it. Interpret it, manipulate it, improvise on it.
The reason to notate the score for accordion and flute was to repeat the musical experience at a later time, and evaluate the process of emotional memory in regards to one particular day.

Months later, time had made me become an outsider to the situation that made me write the piece in the first place;  It was out there being performed by two total strangers in a public event. The only evidence of the moment ever having existed somehow, were the two foreign musicians as protagonists, the audience as a witness and the musical score and recording as lasting documents.
 



Morse Code Composition

A Minefield Bicycle Ride - s.sehnaoui/c.zaven

piano: cynthia zaven
composer: edvard mirzoyan (1921 - 2012)

Sad Waltz

2 excerpts from the free improvisation music performance at Irtijal Festival, 2010

Sabina Meyer, voice
Axel Dörner, trumpet
Paed Conca, electric bass
Cynthia Zaven, piano

Live at Irtijal Festival, Beirut (excerpts)

Excerpt from the free improvisation music performance at Lx factory in Lisbon (Dec, 2010)

Ernesto Rodrigues, viola
Guilherme Rodrigues, cello 
Nuno Torres, alto sax 
Eduardo Chagas, trombone 
Cynthia Zaven, piano 
Ricardo Guerreiro, electronics

Sextet_Lisbon

Live at Ler Devagar, LX Factory, Lisbon (excerpt)

Narine Haroutyunyan - cello
Cynthia Zaven - piano
Composed and recorded in Yerevan in November 2017, inspired by Tamara Stepanyan's documentary Village Of Women.

Image: Janet Biggs, Crew 181, Sol 5 (2017)

Sonar Dream

Excerpt of piano improvs on the back of a truck driving in New Delhi.
2006.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r3FPCrT6uQ

Published on a 12" vinyl with the Staalplaat label:
http://www.staalplaat.com/recording/yokomono-35

One day before my performance in India, a young Lebanese minister was killed in Beirut; it was part of the long parade of political assassinations that had started with PM Hariri in Feb 2005. I decided not to tune the piano. It suited perfectly with the chaos of the city I was in (Delhi) and the city I was from (Beirut). A different chaos, but one nevertheless. I had taken the piano out of its normal 'habitat' therefore de-contextualizing an ordinary setting, and was using it to interact with a city that was not mine, in a language I knew best. We drove around the busy roads of Delhi with me sitting in the back improvising on the piano, challenging the instrument to connect with the urban environment, trying to fit in a place I didn't belong to. Some drivers would beep back, some would just stare in awe thinking it was a movie that was being shot. Feeling the instrument turn into a purely sonic interface to communicate with cars, rikshaws and trucks was both an intense and painful experiment... and after 2 hours on tortuous roads, the piano eventually gave up.

Untuned Piano Concerto With Delhi Traffic Orchestra

Excerpt from the soundtrack composed for "9 Years Later", a 6' film by Dima el Horr. 2004. (Videobrazil - Institute of Contemporary Art - Oxford's Museum Of Modern Art) . 

Lost And Safe

This track was composed for the sound installation entitled "Missing Links", exhibited in Santralistanbul, Turkey (2007) and at the Beirut Art Center, Lebanon (2009).

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr-EYMXiasU

Once Upon A Time, In The Back Of My Mind

www.cynthiazaven.com

Cynthia Zaven is a composer, pianist and artist based in Beirut. 
Her projects combine a variety of media to explore the relationship between sound, memory and identity through interwoven narratives. Works include Untuned Piano Concerto With Delhi Traffic Orchestra (performance, 2006), Morse Code Composition (ICA, 2012), and Perpetuum Mobile, a 12 channel sound installation that was exhibited within the Temple of Bacchus, at the World Heritage site of Baalbeck, and nominated for the Prix Ars Electronica Award 2017. 

Since 1993, Zaven has also created sound design for theater, live performance, dance and conceptual art projects. She has collaborated with musicians and vocalists such as the Neue Vocalsolisten, the Ensemble Modern and the Danapris String Quartet. She has also composed original scores for films that have been screened at venues worldwide including the film festivals at Cannes, Locarno and Toronto, as well as the Walker Art Center, the ICA in London and Oxford's Museum of Modern Art. 
Her music has been published by the Berlin based label, Staalplaat. 
She is currently a professor of classical piano at the Higher National Conservatory of Music in Beirut.


*more infos about tracks by clicking on their title

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