The Fresno New Music Festival this year turned to a familiar name for its featured guest composer: Fresno native Charles Amirkhanian, who founded the Other Minds Festival of avant-garde music in San Francisco. His work will be featured in a Saturday, November 5 concert at the Fresno State Concert Hall, Fresno Bee reports.

“I'm looking forward to doing a master class with composition students to discuss how I put together my pieces,” he said.

Commenting on the concert, he said: “I'm giving the first concert performance of a piece based on sounds I recorded in Armenia with my father Ben in 1994. It's called "Miatsoom," which in Armenian means "reunion." Neither of us had been to our homeland before, and we landed there just after the country had gained its independence.”