Jazz on the Plaza

Bass player and composer Noah Garabedian holds a BA in Ethnomusicology from the University of California Los Angeles, and a Master's of Music Performance from New York University. He is a 2025 Chamber Music America New Jazz Works grant recipient; 2022 Calouste Gulbenkian In View grant recipient; 2021 Artist Fellow with Creative Armenia and AGBU; and 2022 and 2016 Fulbright Specialist Grant recipient; among other awards.

As an educator, Mr. Garabedian was a visiting jazz professor through Fulbright at Silpakorn University as well as at the São Paulo State Music School - EMESP Tom Jobim. He currently works with the music outreach program at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Jazz for Young People and serves as a part-time faculty at The New School and the Stanford Jazz Workshop.
As a composer and bandleader, Noah has released two albums under his own name, as well as one album as a part of the trio collective, Ember. In October 2020, he premiered “The Tragedy of Hate,” a commission from the Peace Resource Center at Wilmington College and has served as the musical director for “Rhythm Is Life,” featuring choreographer and world-renowned tap dancer, Dormeshia.

As a sideman, Mr. Garabedian has performed and toured with Ravi Coltrane, Jeff Tain Watts, and Andy Milne, among others. Mr. Garabedian has also represented the US State Department on two separate tours as a musical ambassador where he performed for the public, taught workshops on music, and collaborated with local musicians.

Photo Credit: Dasha Dare

Liya Grigoryan is an Armenian born, New York City based jazz pianist. She began her studies at the Kim Nazaretov Jazz School in Rostov-on-Don, Russia at age 5. In 1998, she won her first award at the International Jazz Competition for young jazz musicians in Saint Petersburg and proceeded to join a young jazz collective that toured Germany, France, and Scotland.

After graduating high school in 2009, Grigoryan decided to continue her music education in Amsterdam, where she entered the Conservatorium van Amsterdam on full scholarship. During her studies, Liya actively performed all around Europe and won few awards, such as Getxo Jazz Award in Spain, Keep an Eye jazz Award in Netherlands and Jazz in Padova in Italy. In 2015, Grigoryan was selected to study abroad at Manhattan School of Music, where she collaborated with artists such as Phill Markowitz, Dave Liebman, and Justin Diciocio. In 2016, she graduated from Conservatorium van Amsterdam, with a master’s degree in jazz performance.

Now based in New York, Grigoryan performs frequently in the US and in Europe both with her own groups and with artists such as Chad LB, Isaiah Collier, Theo Crocker Martina DaSilva and Sasha Berliner.

In 2019, Liya Grigoryan became a semifinalist of one of the world’s most prestigious jazz competitions - Thelonius Monk Jazz Competition. Grigoryan released her first album as leader of the Liya Grigoryan Trio in 2016. Grigoryan is also an educator, teaching private lessons and working with organizations such as Global Jazz workshop, Litchfield Jazz Camp and JazzReach.

Ariana Hartunian-Sowa is a saxophonist and performance artist whose work bridges jazz, experimental performance, and cultural storytelling. Rooted in her Iranian-Armenian heritage, Ariana leads her band in performances of original compositions, jazz, and Armenian-jazz fusion, often incorporating the poetry of profound Iranian feminist poet, Forugh Farrokhzad. Her artistic voice is shaped by a deep commitment to improvisation, heritage, and the expansion of female presence in jazz and interdisciplinary art spaces.

As a bandleader, she appears regularly with the New Brunswick Jazz Project and at venues throughout New York City. She formerly served as the Music Liaison on the board of the New Brunswick Jazz Project, where her performance roots took hold. Ariana has performed at various venues across New York City, Chris’s Jazz Café, the Middlesex County Jazz Festival, and the New Brunswick Performing Arts Center.

Ariana is a graduate of Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts, where she earned a double major in Jazz Studies and Art History under the mentorship of acclaimed saxophonist Ralph Bowen. As a proud alumna of JAZZ HOUSE KiDS and its CHiCA Power program, Ariana now works for the organization as Manager of Student Services, where she supports students and families while helping organize the same residency that helped shape her early artistic development.

Additionally, she is the Co-Founder and a Curator of The Chapel Coalition, an avant-garde performance art and experimental film organization dedicated to showcasing the work of female artists. Ariana’s curatorial and performance work draws from jazz improvisation, radical performance art traditions at Rutgers, and diasporic storytelling.

Ariana’s dedication to interdisciplinary work and arts leadership has been recognized through several honors, including the Patrick Quigley Fellowship, the Mason Gross Collaborative Dean’s Arts Grant, the Amanda Horowitz Performance Art Fellowship, and the WIJO Mentorship Program. Ariana’s arts experience also extends into cultural preservation—in 2024 she interned at the Zohrab Center at St. Vartan’s Armenian Cathedral in New York City working with their music collection. She has done expansive research on the Iranian-Armenian painter Sumbat Der Kiureghian and looks forward to embarking on a new year of performing and curating.

Trumpeter and composer Michael Sarian has been praised for his "unique compositional and instrumental voice" (All About Jazz) and his "endlessly renewable strain of lyric improvisation regardless of context or material." (Downbeat Magazine).

Born in Toronto and raised in Buenos Aires, Sarian moved to New York City in 2012 and has since performed on some of the world’s most iconic stages, including the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the O2 Arena in London, and Teatro Colón in Argentina, as well as beloved NYC venues such as the Blue Note, Jazz at Lincoln Center, BRIC JazzFest, the Beacon Theatre, Yankee Stadium, Barclays Center, and Central Park SummerStage. He has appeared on WNYC’s Soundcheck, NPR’s World Cafe, and more.

He has released several albums with his long-standing acoustic quartet, including Live at Cliff Bell’s (Shifting Paradigm Records), which was named one of the best live albums of 2024 by The New York City Jazz Record, praising the quartet as “a band that’s developed the kind of telepathy only the road can build… there’s a late ’70s–early ’80s feel to the music throughout, more akin to the ‘stadium jazz’ of V.S.O.P. or Milestone-era McCoy Tyner”. His latest project, ESQUINA — out now on Greenleaf Music — shaped by Sarian’s Armenian heritage, Argentine upbringing, and deep grounding in jazz and improvisation, blends layered synths, extended trumpet techniques, and graphic scores to create immersive performances rooted in memory, dislocation, and ritual.

In 2023 and 2024, Michael joined the Jonas Brothers on The Tour as they played at stadiums and arenas across the globe, including Wrigley Field, Dodgers Stadium, and recording a live album at the 02 Arena in London. He has also shared the stage with artists such as Michael Bublé, Jon Bellion, Kirk Franklin. Michael was selected to join the 2024 Art Omi: Music Residency cohort, repeatedly reached the semifinal round of the prestigious DCJazzPrixx, served as an artist in residence at Culture Lab LIC during the winter/spring 2022 season, and was a 2020 Performer-Composer in Residence at the Westben Centre for Connection & Creativity. In the fall of 2025, he will continue his creative journey as a resident at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

Michael is a Del Quadro Trumpets Artist, performs on his signature ‘SARIAN’ custom line of mouthpieces made in France by Atelier Donat, and is endorsed by Applied Microphone Technologies (AMT).

Photo Credit: Alex SK Brown

Samvel Sarkisyan is an accomplished jazz drummer of Armenian descent, born and raised in Russia. From a young age, he showed exceptional promise in the world of jazz, eventually earning a bachelor’s degree in music performance from the Prince Claus Conservatoire in the Netherlands. He later pursued a master’s degree in jazz performance at Queens College in New York, where he was honored with the Andrea Elkenbracht Scholarship in 2015 and the Armenian General Benevolent Union Scholarship in 2016.

Samvel has performed and toured internationally, appearing at renowned festivals such as the Saratoga Jazz Festival, Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival, Triumph of Jazz International Festival, and the ELBJazz Festival in Hamburg.

Based on the East Coast of the U.S., he regularly performs at premier jazz venues including Jazz at Lincoln Center, Jazz Standard, Zinc Bar, 55 Bar, and Jazz Forum. He is currently an active member of the Joe Locke Quartet, Misha Piatigorsky's "Daddy Rabbit" show, and the Springlight Quartet, bringing his dynamic style and rhythmic sophistication to audiences across the region.