Koen Nutters, contrabass
Johnny Chang and Cat Lamb, violas
Lucio Capece, bass clarinet

Document from an initial performance on October 20th, 2013 at Ausland, Berlin.


Areas of Presence: material/highlight (2013)

The title, written in a phonetic translation of Arabic, means, literally, “When the Tree of Life grows in the Yahi desert”. The Tree of Life (Shajarat al-Hayah) is a 400 year-old tree that exists in the Bahrain’s desert, an island that lies right in the middle of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran and Iraq. At the beginning of 2015, I was extremely chocked by the terrorist attacks committed not only in France, but also in Nigeria, etc., by some religious extremists. Anyhow, I truly believe that all this acts have little to do with religious matters. I think the aim of this war is above all political. It’s a quest for power leaded by militarily trained men. This kind of desire for power can be symbolized, nowadays, by the capitalism itself, but especially by the oil, the black gold, which gushes in that region of the Earth where this mysterious tree, that no one knows how it can possibly be alive (Shajarat al-Hayah), lives. 
Yahi desert, in its turn, comes from the Brecht’s piece “The exception and the rule”. It tells the story of a rich merchant, who must cross the fictional Yahi Desert to close an oil deal. As he does not know the way, he hires two local men to guide him during the journey:
"We are here to report
The story of a journey. It was undertaken
By one who exploits and two of the exploited.
Closely observe the behavior of these people:
Find it strange, even when ordinary
Inexplicable, even when familiar
Incomprehensible, even when it is the rule.
Even the slightest detail, however simple
You should look at with suspicion. Ask if it is needed
Especially when it is quite normal.
Please, we say to you now, do not accept
Events that happen every day as natural!
For in these times of bloody confusion,
Ordered disorder, deliberate violence
Inhuman humanity -
Nothing must be called natural, so that nothing
May be thought unchangeable."

This desert, scenario for this quest for the oil, reveals the greedy part of the human being. The piece is based on the sounds that the drilling oil machine does while extracting this black gold in the earth sub-surface, trying to make grow an impossible Tree that could metamorphose this oppressive reality into something more positive, to reveal some hope underneath all this deliberate violence that we experience in the modern society.

Andma Shajarat al-Hayah tanmow fi Sahra Yahi

for snares, cymbals, crotales

Riley Barnes, Julie Choi, Jon Clancy, Gabriel Costache, Tae McLoughlin, Amber Evans cond.
Ades Performance Space, Manhattan School of Music
March 26, 2019

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Nhat Minh Nguyen

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