An Evening of Photography, Storytelling, and Music
American photographer and storyteller Winslow Martin offers a moving love letter to Armenia with We Wait For Your Return, a night of intimate stories, evocative imagery, and music celebrating the beauty and soul of the Armenian people. Martin will take audience members on a unique journey from Watertown, Massachusetts, to Armenia with the help of award-winning Armenian composer Astghik Martirosyan and a five-piece band. We Wait For Your Return: A Love Letter to Armenia premiers Saturday, May 7 at 8:00 PM at Blackman Auditorium on Northeastern’s Campus. Tickets are available now at eventbrite.com.
The images from We Wait For Your Return form a remarkable tapestry, one photo a probing portrait, the next a poignant still life, another an extraordinary photo that features a distinctive Armenian landscape, challenging and rewarding the viewer with the use of composition and light. Winslow connects each image in We Wait For Your Return through his storytelling, taking audience members a spiritual and artistic journey from his first meeting with Father Dajad Davidian at a Watertown church, through the deepening of their friendship, as it played out across their adventures together in Armenia.
Winslow Martin’s life as a photographer has been all about people–photographing the music world in Boston, serving as a commercial photographer, and as Senior Staff Photographer at Community Newspapers Company, where he was honored as Photographer of the Year by the New England Press Association. He is best known for documenting everyday life and historical events in Armenia, his passion for the last twenty years. Martin is now pouring all of his energy into sharing his Armenian images and stories with a broader audience. His purpose is simple–to bring greater attention and support to Armenia today, where Martin is spending April, preparing for a showcase of his work at the National Museum of Armenia in Yerevan.
“I fell in love with Armenia and I want to, in this performance, somehow give back to them,” said Winslow Martin, photographer. “When you are a photographer you reach a point when the work isn’t just about you, and the photography, and your viewers. It is about what you owe to the people who so graciously opened their doors to you. You have to give back something because they have given so much of themselves.”
Award-winning composer Astghik Martirosyan has crafted a beautiful accompaniment to the evening. Armenian folk songs and liturgical music are interpreted in her arrangements along with her own original compositions, which support Martin’s storytelling and enhance the drama and emotion of his photographs. She will lead a five-piece band, which will include Martirosyan on vocals, with piano, bass, percussion, and duduk, an Armenian reed instrument.
An Armenian born Los Angeles-based vocalist, composer, and pianist, Martirosyan has collaborated and performed with renowned musicians including Dave Holland, Darek Oleszkiewicz and Johnny O’Neal, and is a recent recipient of Magos Herrera Female Immigrant Musician Award (2022) from the International Human Rights Art Festival.
A portion of the proceeds from the evening will support Project SAVE, an organization that brings to light the culture and history of Armenians by making photographs and their stories, which otherwise would be lost, destroyed, or forgotten, available for public and educational use.
We Wait For Your Return: A Love Letter to Armenia premiers Saturday, May 7, 8:00 PM at Northeastern University’s Blackman Auditorium, 342 Huntington Avenue in Boston. Tickets are on sale now at eventbrite.com.