MARY KOUYOUMDJIAN is a GRAMMY®-nominated composer and documentarian with projects ranging from concert works to multimedia collaborations and film scores. As a first generation Armenian-American and having come from a family directly affected by the Lebanese Civil War and Armenian Genocide, she uses a sonic palette that draws on her heritage, interest in music as documentary, and background in experimental composition to progressively blend the old with the new. 

A finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Music, Kouyoumdjian has received commissions for the New York Philharmonic, Kronos Quartet, Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Beth Morrison Projects/OPERA America, Alarm Will Sound, Bang on a Can, International Contemporary Ensemble, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and Roomful of Teeth, among others. Her work has been featured internationally at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MASS MoCA, the Barbican Centre, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Millennium Park, Benaroya Hall, Prototype Festival, SF Jazz, Cabrillo Festival, Big Ears Festival, Cal Performances, Tribeca Film Festival, and PBS. In May 2025, her Pulitzer-nominated music-documentary, Paper Pianos, in collaboration with Alarm Will Sound was performed at The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center after originally premiering in 2023 at EMPAC. 

Kouyoumdjian's opera Adoration, adapted from Atom Egoyan’s 2008 film, was premiered by Beth Morrison Projects in NYC before receiving its West Coast premiere at LA Opera. The world premiere recording was released on Bright Shiny Things in August 2025 and was nominated for a 2025 GRAMMY® Award for Best Opera Recording, making history as the first opera by an Armenian composer in the category. Her debut portrait album, WITNESS, featuring the Kronos Quartet, was also released through Phenotypic Recordings in 2025. 

Kouyoumdjian holds a D.M.A. and M.A. in Composition at Columbia University, an M.A. in Scoring for Film & Multimedia from New York University, and a B.A. in Composition from UC San Diego. She is a cofounder of the annual new music conference New Music Gathering, is on faculty at The New School, and is based in Brooklyn, NY.