Arts&Life
documentary
40 | JUNE 11 • 2020
Music Evokes
Emotions from
Armenian Genocide
Album and documentary go digital.
SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
P
roducer-musician Ohad Wilner and film edi-
tor Stewart Shevin grew up in Jewish families
never forgetting the Holocaust, but they had no
knowledge of the Armenian Genocide perpetrated
years earlier by the Turkish Ottoman Empire.
Their knowledge came as they worked on musical
projects with first-generation Armenian-American
Dan Yessian, and the two enthusiastically helped com-
municate long-denied atrocities with an award-win-
ning film.
Milford resident Yessian generally immerses his
business team in developing music for television
shows, commercials, theme parks and game platforms
through Yessian Music Inc., his music production
company based in Farmington Hills with offices in
New York, Los Angeles and Hamburg, Germany.
Among Yessian’
s many clients are the Ford Motor
Company, Disney and Intel. But he entered into per-
sonally meaningful projects following a request from a
religious leader at the Southfield church he attends.
Yessian was asked to create music expressing emo-
details
The documentary An Armenian Trilogy is available on Amazon.
The three-movement classical composition, An Armenian
Trilogy – Live in Yerevan, performed by the Armenian National
Philharmonic Orchestra, is available on iTunes, Spotify and
Amazon. Further music availability details and background
information can be found at armeniantrilogy.com.
COURTESY OF DAN YESSIAN
Ohan Wilner
Stewart
Shevin
Dan Yessian