MILFORD, Mich. — What do a Milford man, the Armenian Genocide and Burt Bacharach’s piano have in common? They are all crucial elements in the making of “An Armenian Trilogy,” a PBS documentary that premiered last March on Channel 56, Detroit Public TV, based on his symphony of the same name.
Dan Yessian, 78, is a Milford resident who took an unconventional path to becoming a success, composing award-winning music for television, movies, theme parks, Fortune 500 companies and memorials including the One World Observatory in New York City. Yessian Music has an office in New York City, as well as Los Angeles and Hamburg, Germany, but the company is based in Farmington Hills. It got its start in 1971 when Yessian risked disappointing his parents and gave up a teaching career after only four years to compose music that to this day he is unable to read or write.
“I don’t read or write music, I play music,” said Yessian, who had lessons in clarinet and saxophone as a child, but played by ear. He later did the same with the piano. “What I had to do producing music — I would tell them (instrumentalists) what I want to hear — chords I wanted. For years, I didn’t know where middle C was on the piano. Somehow or other, I banged out a career doing it this way.”
What is An Armenian Trilogy? The 22-minute symphony Yessian composed at the request of his church priest in 2014 was a three-year project commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. In this horrific event, 1.5 million Armenian citizens were massacred by the Ottoman Empire, in an act Yessian said was not unlike the Holocaust. “There were no ovens to destroy them,” he said, “but the Armenians were forced to march through the desert until they dropped dead.”
Yessian completed a symphony with three movements, The Freedom, The Fear and The Faith. With little patience for historical data, he sought to convey in his music the emotions the Armenian people felt. “We are supposed to learn from history, but that doesn’t seem to happen. The thought was, ‘Let me lay this out, so people might understand what they are going through.’”
How does Burt Bacharach’s piano come into play? Bacharach, who died in February 2023 after a lifetime of fame composing such popular hits as Rain Drops Keep Fallin on My Head, I Say a Little Prayer and What the World Needs Now Is Love was a musical hero for Yessian. In addition to creating music, Yessian has a huge appreciation for the talent of others. In 2006, he bought Burt Bacharach’s Steinway grand piano. The instrument used for composing Bacharach hits like The Look of Love is still the one Yessian plays at home.
