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