ARTIST BIO

Cynthia Zaven is a composer, pianist and artist based in Beirut

She performs classical, experimental and improvised music in solo shows as well as in collaboration with other artists.
Her works include Untuned Piano Concerto With Delhi Traffic Orchestra (performance, 2006), Morse Code Composition (2012), Bunker Fairy Tale (12 channel sound installation with video) and more recently, Perpetuum Mobile, a 12 channel sound installation that was exhibited within the temple of Bacchus, in the archeological site of Baalbeck, and nominated for the Prix Ars Electronica Award 2017. Since 1993, Zaven has also composed original scores and created sound designs for film, theater, live performance, dance, visual art, and conceptual art projects. The award-winning works have been exhibited at festivals worldwide including the international film festivals at Cannes, Locarno, Toronto, Edinburgh, as well as IDFA, the Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival, Sao Paolo, the Bern Kunstmuseum, the Institute of Contemporary Art in London and Oxford’s Museum of Modern Art. Her music has been published by the Berlin based label, Staalplaat. She is currently a piano professor at the Higher National Conservatory of Music in Beirut.

Cynthia Zaven . Installation shot from the exhibition 'From Sound to Silence', Galerie Tanit, Beirut, 2017