On October 8, 2026, Ensemble Decipher will give the world premiere of Joseph Bohigian’s I Am He Whose Life and Soul Are Torment on the first night of the Other Minds Festival at the Brava Theater in San Francisco, California. I Am He Whose Life and Soul Are Torment is an evening-length multimedia work about the life of the visionary Soviet-Armenian film director Sergei Parajanov (1924–1990) that combines the multilingual songs of the 18th century bard Sayat Nova in Armenian, Azeri, and Georgian with live electronic manipulation of recordings by South Caucasus folk musicians. The project is a collaboration with Bohigian, vocalist and duduk player Khatchadour Khatchadourian, and artists Tara Baghdassarian and Karo Yagjian. Tickets are available now from Other Minds.
This performance is made possible through generous support from the MAP Fund, Zellerbach Family Foundation, American Research Institute of the South Caucasus, Creative Armenia-AGBU, and New Music USA Creator Fund 2025–26.