Cevanne is a composer, performer and artist whose work has been described as “wide-ranging, dynamic and utterly unique” (BBC Music Magazine).
Writing for NMC, Caroline Potter has summarised that “Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian’s music is not an abstract art, but one that tells stories of history, people and travel; it has a rare sense of place.” Cevanne’s interdisciplinary practice has been developed through residencies in artists’ former homes, including Mahler & LeWitt Studios, the Handel & Hendrix Museum, Snape Maltings, and 575 Wandsworth Road (National Trust) with the London Symphony Orchestra. This LSO residency was recorded as an album, Welcome Party (NMC Recordings). It features her British Composer Award-winning piece Muted Lines, commissioned by saxophonist Trish Clowes. Based on a line written by Armenian poet Nahabed Kouchag in exile, Muted Lines gradually censors the text until only the direction to ‘sing songs’ remains.
Cevanne creates for orchestra, choir, band, and electronics — such as the 'Sonic Bonnet’ midi- controller made by Crewdson which she played at her BBC Proms debut. She has developed works for theatre, including the Birmingham Royal Ballet and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and for art installation. Her collaborative work Rites For Crossing Water included an outdoor projection on the Coventry canal, EP and augmented reality book, and was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award.
Cevanne has been a Visiting Fellow at Girton College, University of Cambridge, and a lecturer a the Royal Academy of Music in London. She is now pursuing practice-based research in music and sculpture at the Royal College of Art, thanks to the generosity of the Mrs C K Christopherson Scholarship, AGBU Performing Arts Scholarship, and D&S Ouzounian Trust.
This collection of collaborative works by Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian puts Armenian and English folklore in contemporary settings. It considers how future folklore originates in the present day. Cevanne references the biologist Jonas Salk, who asked: “are we being good ancestors?”.
A WORD IN YOUR SHELL
Sound-Sculpture: queen conch shells, plywood, mosaic of CDs (Big Ears, Cevanne, 2010), speaker driver, microphone, audio collage
45cm x 70cm, 2026
Photo credit: Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian
“My sculpture filters sound through the resonance of a shell. It’s like when you hold one to your ear to ‘hear the sea’, but this listens back. It’s fitted with a microphone and speaker, using the shell as a resonator and amplifier. Anything you whisper into one shell will be heard through the speaker in the second shell — but it sounds different, ’sea-changed’. I have made this to respond to the erosion of my native Suffolk coast. I question the government’s plans to expand nuclear infrastructure on a crumbling shoreline, and what that legacy will mean for future generations.”
Photo credit: Gregor Petrikovič
Shell trumpet in F Sharp made for THE SHELL CHORUS
Queen conch shells, mosaic of CDs, sea-glass
20cm x 21cm, 2026
“I’ve made trumpets from shells, which can call over long distances. I am collaborating with musicians to establish a ‘Shell Choir’. The earliest shell-trumpet is 18,000 years old. Making these instruments connects me with our ancestors. I’ve written music designed to be played at sites which will be underwater in the future.”
THE ENCHANTRESS AND THE NIGHTINGALE
Digital film, music & gesture
4 minutes, 2023
“The Enchantress and the Nightingale transports the world of Hazaran Blbul to my native Suffolk coast to warn energy companies of their current and future destruction of the habitat of the nightingale, and many other endangered species.”
RITES FOR CROSSING WATER
Texts for performance, ‘found-sound’ folksongs, projected digital animation
Published as an art-book, an EP, and installed on the Coventry Canal
2022
Photo credit: Andrew Moore 2021