Composer Mary Kouyoumdjian’s “Adoration” nominated for a GRAMMY® for Best Opera Recording
NEW YORK — The world premiere recording of first-generation Armenian-American composer Mary Kouyoumdjian’s electroacoustic chamber opera “Adoration” has been nominated for a GRAMMY® Award for Best Opera Recording. The honor marks the first time in history that an opera by an Armenian composer has been nominated in the category. “Adoration” follows a high school student whose fictional story about a terrorist plot goes viral, unpacking how grief, racism and media distortion collide to obscure the truth.
“Adoration” was released digitally on Aug. 8, 2025, on “Bright Shiny Things” and is available on all streaming platforms. Adapted from the film of the same name by Armenian-Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan, the libretto was written by Royce Vavrek, and the work was produced and given its world premiere by Beth Morrison Projects. Conducted by Alan Pierson, the cast features Miriam Khalil, Omar Najmi, David Adam Moore and GRAMMY® Award winner Karim Sulayman, alongside Naomi Louisa O’Connell, Marc Kudisch and Sammy Ivany.
They are joined by the GRAMMY®-nominated Choir of Trinity Wall Street under Thomas McCargar, the Silvana Quartet and sound designer Daniel Neumann, with electronics by Kouyoumdjian. The album was recorded live during PROTOTYPE Festival performances between Jan. 12 and 20, 2024, at The Sheen Center for Thought and Culture in New York City.
The protagonist of “Adoration,” Simon, is an orphaned high school student who is encouraged by a teacher, as part of a dramatic writing exercise, to appropriate details from a historical terrorist attack as an event perpetrated by his parents. When his story goes viral, Simon uses the hysteria within his community and on the internet to highlight the challenges of intolerance and racism. “Adoration” tells two simultaneous stories — a fictional story of terrorism and betrayal next to a real story of family strife and rejection — until a shocking final revelation fits them together.
Kouyoumdjian was awarded an OPERA America commissioning grant to create the adaptation of Egoyan’s film, along with “exemplary creator of operatic prose” (The New York Times) Royce Vavrek. After its premiere as part of the 2024 Prototype Festival, the opera had its West Coast premiere at LA Opera in February 2025.
In an artist statement in the booklet, Kouyoumdjian writes: “I believe that artists are the speakers of difficult truths. As a member of a family displaced from both the Lebanese Civil War and Armenian Genocide, I consider my freedom of expression here in the United States to be an immense privilege, and so I am drawn to stories that are both challenging to confront and to speak… Filmmaker Atom Egoyan has created such a story with his film “Adoration,” and I am incredibly grateful to have spent the last several years living in this wonderfully challenging space in adapting his film into an opera… Our world continues to be fractured over unresolved multi-generational traumas that can cause horrifying divisions, globally and often in the closeness of our own families; however, like the story behind “Adoration,” individuals and communities, at their very best, also find beautiful ways through these divisions.”
