Lara Sarkissian
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Biografía
- Lara Sarkissian is an electronic musician and sound artist born and raised in San Francisco; currently based in Los Angeles. She is a broadcaster on NTS Radio, and formerly co-founder of experimental dance label CLUB CHAI.As a composer, Sarkissian's electronic music takes on experimental approaches - sequencing acoustic instruments and samples underscored with an electronic rhythmic pulse that draws from a deep appreciation for dance, club music, atmospheric ambient and noise. She has created her own unique process of synthesizing Armenian woodwind as percussion, bass and voice. Sarkissian’s approach to music is to create immersive and sonic landscapes, inviting listeners into the intersection of her worlds, fantasies and stories. She makes use of: field recording, writing, voice, digital audio, analog synth hardware, drum machines, film samples and collaborations with performing musicians. Her beginnings in music production are from experimental filmmaking and video editing, producing her own sound collage and scores to her footage. Sarkissian scores video, film and immersive AV installations that have exhibited across museums and art centers in Europe and the US, such as Martin Gropius Bau Berlin, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, Wexner Center for the Arts, and John Michael Kohler Arts Center. In April 2018, Sarkissian joined the Institute for Sound and Music in Berlin as an artist in residence, producing a 360 degree immersive installation piece in collaboration with visual artist Jemma Woolmore for the ISM Hexadome, alongside residents Brian Eno, Holly Herndon, Thom Yorke, and more. Sarkissian has released music with labels Tresor, Knekelhuis, Silva Electronics, All Centre, CLUB CHAI, Rocky Hill Records, and TT. She has performed nights for Tresor, Hyperdub, Unsound Festival, MoMA PS1, Roskilde Festival, Boiler Room broadcasts and more. In 2021, Sarkissian was published in the Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies, The Soundscapes of Our Elsewheres: A Conversation with Lara Sarkissian authored by Ethnomusicologist Sylvia Alajaji. In 2022, she was published in Norient’s This Track Contains Politics - The Culture of Sampling in Experimental Electronica, with a research chapter on Sarkissian’s methods of sampling Armenian instruments, music and voice. She has taught sound design for film courses at Stepanakert and Yerevan’s TUMO Center for Creative Technologies, producing youth film projects, and currently guest lectures Ethnomusicology courses at UCLA's Herb Alpert School of Music.