FINALISTS
Reconstruction by Haykaz Balumyan
My Father’s Friend by Rex Bell
Siembra by Sadiel Cuentas
Magic at the Mill by Oliviana Marie
Artsakh Mountains of Home by Michael Glenn Williams
For Family and Friends Remembered by Ian Wiese
HONORABLE MENTIONS
The Dance of the Mountains by Karen Ananyan
Ergang (Grinding Wheat) by Vahan Grigoryan
Gnishik Ascent by Amy Jerman
Dances of Circles and Shapes by John Mackay
To My Friend by Alex Shapira
Everflowing Distance by Samuel Sjostedt
Note to composers whose works have been selected for performance (May 15 or May 16, 2026):
Performance of your music is conditional upon your willingness to collaborate with the performers and make small adjustments if necessary for playability.
Works receiving Honorable Mention will be performed on the opening night concert on May 15, 2026 and will not receive monetary prizes. The winner of the competition will be selected from the Finalists and announced during the Grand Finale Concert on May 16, 2026.
Thank you for submitting music to the HOMECOMING 2026 Competition! We very much enjoyed studying your 30 highly artistic compositions, which came from England, Peru, Korea, Armenia, and The United States. Your music had well-prepared scores, insightful program notes, and beautifully sampled Mp3s. Our assignment was to select six works to be Finalists in the competition and to select up to six more for an Honorable Mention concert.
The underlying purpose of the HOMECOMING competition is to encourage composers to use Armenian folk materials in their works in order to help preserve the culture of people from Artsakh who have been forced from their homes and land. We believe all the music submitted deserves to be performed and our hope is that all of the works will have multiple opportunities to be heard.
Sincerely,
Deon Nielsen Price, D.M.A, Composer, Pianist, Conductor
Ronald Royer, M.M.A., Composer, Conductor, Cellist and Music Producer


Yearning by Joan Huang
And Churn by Ian Wiese
Recollection by Grigory Balasanyan
Vignettes by Olivia Marckx
The Road Home by David Raiklen
Song of The Churn by Vahan Grigoryan

Peter Peyman Farzinpour enjoys a diverse career as a conductor, composer, multimedia producer, music professor, and arts entrepreneur. He is currently the Executive / Artistic Director and Conductor of the new music and multimedia group, ENSEMBLE / PARALLAX and Sinfonietta Notturna, as well as Director of Farzinpour Creative Music & Mult
Peter Peyman Farzinpour enjoys a diverse career as a conductor, composer, multimedia producer, music professor, and arts entrepreneur. He is currently the Executive / Artistic Director and Conductor of the new music and multimedia group, ENSEMBLE / PARALLAX and Sinfonietta Notturna, as well as Director of Farzinpour Creative Music & Multimedia Ventures. He has traveled and conducted throughout major concert halls in the United States, Canada, and throughout Europe where he has conducted in France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Czechia, and Bulgaria.

Lucinda Carver is a much beloved and highly acclaimed musician who is equally at home at the piano, harpsichord and on the conductor’s podium. As music director and conductor of the Los Angeles Mozart orchestra for 11 years, Carver garnered critical praise for her stylistic interpretations of music from the Classical era. Active in both
Lucinda Carver is a much beloved and highly acclaimed musician who is equally at home at the piano, harpsichord and on the conductor’s podium. As music director and conductor of the Los Angeles Mozart orchestra for 11 years, Carver garnered critical praise for her stylistic interpretations of music from the Classical era. Active in both the symphonic and operatic arenas, she was proclaimed “a find….a first-rate conductor” by Bernard Holland of the New York Times and “an important emerging conductor” by Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times.

Congratulations
to the six finalists of the Homecoming Return To Artsakh National Composition Competition 2024!
Grigori Balasanyan "Recollection"
Vahan Grigoryan "Khnocu Erg"
Joan Huang "Yearning"
Olivia Marckx "Vignettes"
David Raiklen "The Road Home"
Ian Wiese "And Churn"
Thank you to everyone who submitted scores for this project. All of the submissions are playable and of high musical interest. There will be a reading (date TBA) of the scores not listed among the finalists. Appreciation for selecting the six finalist scores goes to Thomas E. Flaherty. Doctor of Musical Arts, cellist, composer, musicologist; and Deon Nielsen Price, Doctor of Musical Arts, composer, pianist.
Join us on September 28 at Glendale Presbyterian Church at 7PM for a wonderful culmination of this competition, featuring performances by the renowned Lyris Quartet and pianist Mathew Harikian.


**All Proceeds of the event goes to 2024 National Composition Competition, Homecoming: Return To Artsakh. For ticket delivery please call 818-856-5585.
Music for Unity, in cooperation with the National Association of Composers USA Los Angeles. Chapter (NACUSA-LA), invites composers, age eighteen or older, to submit a new work for HOMECOMING.
Music for Unity believes that because music is the universal language, it can bring
awareness to global humanitarian issues in an effective way. On September of 2023, 120,000 Armenian people were forced to leave their ancestral homeland of Artsakh, leaving behind their homes and heritage to the dictatorial territory of Azerbaijan. This genocidal act is aimed at erasing the Armenian presence and culture in the region. Music for Unity protests such crimes against humanity through the powerful force of Music!
The HOMECOMING project is inspired by our belief that “all displaced persons have the right to return to their homes,” as stated by the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatović.
2. By The Piano With Shushana Established February 9, 2023
By The Piano With Shushana is a new concert series created to promote European, American, and international classical music in the community with the participation of great performers of diverse backgrounds from Los Angeles and beyond.
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