In much of the academic and policy literature that proliferated after the fall of the Soviet Union, development and culture were portrayed as distinct, if not opposing forces—with development characterized as movement toward the future, and culture as the maintenance of traditions from the past. Yet, since the decentralization of Armenia’s cultural sector after 1995, traditional Armenian artists have found unlikely patrons in non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and for-profit companies whose missions are not the preservation of cultural heritage, but instead development priorities like democracy building, conflict transformation, and economic growth. This dissertation focuses on the role of music and musicians in these spaces, asking, what do musicians lend to philanthropic and development initiatives? Where might there be areas of confluence and disagreement in transnational encounters between development professionals, musicians, and other participants? More broadly, what role does music play in the ways that Armenians imagine their individual and collective futures when the country’s economic stability, political sovereignty, and regional security are at stake? Drawing on twenty-two months of ethnographic fieldwork in Armenia, Turkey, Georgia, Russia, and the United States, the dissertation is organized around three case studies: rituals of music and activism at the centennial of the Armenian Genocide, a musical peacebuilding project in the context of war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and the involvement of traditional musicians as teachers and consultants in Armenia’s growing information technology sector. Following many of the same musicians between disparate philanthropic and development initiatives, this dissertation argues that researching development from the vantage point of musicians reveals a multiplicity of Armenian orientations toward the future, exposes points of convergence and friction across the development landscape, and contributes to a more richly textured sensory account of development processes that are often subsumed within narratives of global capitalism and the post-Soviet transition.