Alex Biniaz-Harris 
& Ambrose Soehn 
 
 
 
Alex Biniaz-Harris​​ is a musician and entrepreneur based in Los Angeles, CA. 
Born and raised in Washington, DC, he moved to LA to complete degrees in 
business and piano at the University of Southern California. There, he worked at 
USC Shoah Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded by Steven Spielberg 
that archives video testimony of genocide survivors (including that of his 
grandmother, the youngest living person on Schindler’s list). He aims to 
combine music and testimony to educate humanity about the ills of genocide. 
 
Ambrose Soehn​​ is a musician and product manager based in Boston, MA. Born 
and raised in Boulder, Colorado, he went on to study piano performance and 
neuroscience at the University of Southern California. Inspired by the 
psychological mechanisms behind music, he applied music therapy research to 
propose a social program in Rwanda for helping individuals process residual 
trauma from the genocide by creating music. He then went on to work at USC 
Shoah Foundation. To this day, Ambrose remains endlessly fascinated by the 
power of music and strives to apply it towards positive social causes. 
 
 
We met at the University of Southern California, as classmates in four-hand piano courses and 
interns at USC Shoah Foundation. Researching testimony of Holocaust survivors and traditional 
Jewish music, we composed a four-hand piano piece based on melodies composed in, listened to, 
and performed in Auschwitz concentration camp. We performed the composition at the 70th 
anniversary commemoration of Auschwitz’s liberation in Krakow, Poland in January 2015. 
 
 
Earlier this year, we began to research the Cambodian genocide in the hopes of creating a similar, 
meaningful collaboration. From video testimony of Cambodian survivors, books, films, and 
documentaries, we discovered and analyzed traditional Cambodian music, soul, jazz, and rock & 
roll after French independence, and compositions during and after the Khmer Rouge regime. 
Finding inspiration in melodies from those sources, we wrote ​Garuda’s Song​, a four-hand piano 
composition that will feature electric guitar, voice, and Cambodian instruments (e.g., khloy).