Twice Upon a Time | A Film by Niam Itani

Original Soundtrack

Music Composed and Orchestrated by Suad Bushnaq
Music Recording and Mixing: Tristan Capacchione

Oud: Ismail Fencioglu
Qanoun: Didem Basar
Clarinet: Pedro Molina
Piano: Suad Bushnaq

All rights reserved ©2017 Suad Bushnaq

Twice Upon a Time | Twice Upon a Time | Suad Bushnaq

Suad Bushnaq is a prolific, musically multilingual film and concert composer whose music has been hailed as 'reflective and touching' (BBC The Arts Hour), 'rich and accessible' (Klarafestival, Belgium), and 'beautiful as the sadness of the night and the joy of the daybreak (Arab music legend Marcel Khalifeh, on her piece 'The Road to Jenin').

Bushnaq has composed short and feature length film scores for a number of award-winning filmmakers. Her music has been heard at prestigious festivals including the Dubai, Seattle, and Edinburgh International Film Festivals to name a few, earning critical acclaim.

Her concert music has been performed in Europe, Canada, the United States, and the Middle East, and is listened to internationally. It includes works for solo, ensemble, choir, orchestra, and electroacoustics. Her orchestral works include a commission by 'ensemble mini' to create an Arabic-infused arrangement of Bartók's Rumänische Orchestertanz, as well as her Hakawaty (The Storyteller) Suite for Orchestra; an original composition of which select movements were performed by the Syrian Expat Philharmonic Orchestra to sold-out shows at the Berlin Philharmonie, Konzerthaus Berlin, Malmö Live Konserthus, in addition to the BOZAR along with the National Orchestra of Belgium. Her music has also been performed by the Orquesta Ritornello, the Friedenauer Kammerensemble, and will be performed by the reputable Vermont Symphony Orchestra in December 2017. It is worth mentioning that Bushnaq is the one who orchestrates all of her compositions. Her discography includes Thoughts, From the Heart, and the soundtrack album for The Curve. 

An Arab-Canadian born to a Syrian mother and a Bosnian-Palestinian father, Bushnaq is one of a handful of Arab women composers in the world. She earned an entrance scholarship award from the world-renowned music composition program at Canada's top music school, McGill University, where she completed a Bachelor in Music Composition ('09). She is a member of both the Screen Composers Guild of Canada and the Alliance for Women Film Composers, and completed four years of her music education at the Higher Institute of Music in Damascus, Syria.


Never let me lose the marvel
of your statue-like eyes, or the accent
the solitary rose of your breath
places on my cheek at night.

I am afraid of being, on this shore,
a branchless trunk, and what I most regret
is having no flower, pulp, or clay
for the worm of my despair.

If you are my hidden treasure,
if you are my cross, my dampened pain,
if I am a dog, and you alone my master,

never let me lose what I have gained,
and adorn the branches of your river
with leaves of my estranged Autumn.

______


A light which lives on what the flames devour
a grey landscape surrounding me with scorch
a crucifixion by a single wound
a sky and earth that darken by each hour
a sob of blood whose red ribbon adorns
a lyre without a pulse, and oils the torch
a tide which stuns and strands me on the reef
a scorpion scrambling, stinging in my chest--
this is the wreath of love, this bed of thorns
is where I dream of you stealing my rest,
haunting these sunken ribs cargoed with grief.
I sought the peak of prudence, but I found
the hemlock-brimming valley of your heart,
and my own thirst for bitter truth and art.


- Federico García Lorca

العابرون سريعاً جميلون. لا يتركون ثقلَ ظلّ. ربما غباراً قليلاً، سُرعان ما يختفي، الأكثر جمالاً بيننا، المتخلّي عن حضوره.

- وديع سعادة "عزيزي"