Composed for Ensemble Recheche
Commissioned by Koussevitzky Music Foundation
Premiered: December 5, 2024, Freiburg, Germany

Program note: 
The title of this piece, "Journal of an Ordinary Grief," is inspired by a poignant collection of autobiographical essays by the celebrated Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. His work profoundly captures the complexities of loss, identity, and resilience through the act of writing poetry in the face of unimaginable violence and suffering.
My composition responds to the ongoing catastrophe unfolding in Palestine, a crisis that compels us to confront the stark reality of this still ongoing barbaric violence and its profound impact on our shared humanity. Structured in five movements and interspersed with three fixed-media electronic pieces featuring recitations by Darwish of three of his poems, the work seeks to narrate the intricate dilemmas and pain we face in witnessing such devastation and aims to create a space for collective mourning.

The poems and translations of the fixed-media pieces:

1)
early evening
over a neglected village
and two eyes dreaming
I go back thirty years
and five wars
I see that time holds for me
a grain of hope
the singer sings about
the fire and strangers
and the evening was evening
and the singer was singing
and they interrogated him
“Why do you sing?”
He replies
“Because I sing”
They searched within him
but found only his heart
they search his heart
but found only his people
they searched his voice
but found only his sadness
they searched his sadness
but found only his prison
they searched his prison
but found only themselves in chains
and the evening was evening
and the singer was singing

2)
Excerpt from Counterpoint
(for Edward W. Said)
Translated by Mona Anis

On wind he walks, and in wind
he knows himself. There is no ceiling for the wind,
no home for the wind. Wind is the compass
of the stranger’s North.
He says: I am from there, I am from here,
but I am neither there nor here.
I have two names which meet and part…
I have two languages, but I have long forgotten
which is the language of my dreams.
I have an English language, for writing,
with yielding phrases,
and a language in which Heaven and
Jerusalem converse, with a silver cadence,
but it does not yield to my imagination.

He says: The poem could host
loss, a thread of light shining
at the heart of a guitar; or a Christ
on a horse pierced through with beautiful metaphors. For
the aesthetic is but the presence of the real
in form/
In a world without a sky, the earth
becomes an abyss. The poem,
a consolation, an attribute
of the wind, southern or northern.
Do not describe what the camera can see
of your wounds. And scream that you may hear yourself,
and scream that you may know you’re still alive,
and alive, and that life on this earth.. 


3)
Nothing pleases me
the traveler on the bus says-Not the radio 
or the morning newspaper, nor the citadels on the hills. 
I want to cry/
The driver says: Wait until you get to the station, 
then cry alone all you want/ 
A woman says: Me too. Nothing
pleases me. I guided my son to my grave, 
he liked it and slept there, without saying goodbye/ 
A college student says: Nor does anything
pleases me. I studied archeology but didn’t 
find identity in stone. Am I 
really me?/ 
And a soldier says: Me too. Nothing
pleases me. I always besiege a ghost 
besieging me/ 
The edgy driver says: Here we are
almost near our last stop, get ready 
to get off…/ 
Then they scream: We want what’s beyond the station, 
keep going!
As for myself I say: Let me off here. I am 
like them, nothing pleases me, but I’m worn out
From travel. 

(Translation by Fadi Joudah)


Journal of an Ordinary Grief (2024)-Ashkan Behzadi

“Forsythia—
and radiant spring’s
melancholy”
— Mantarō Kubota

Forsythia (2024-25) 
Composed for and dedicated to Yarn/ Wire
Musicians: 
Pianos: Julia den Boer, Laura Barger
Percussions: Russell Greenberg, Dennis Sulivan

Forsythia (2024-25)-Ashkan Behzadi

for Pierrot Ensemble and Electronics
performed by Sixth Degree Sextet
at Mise-En_Place

Flute: Andrea Abel
Clarinet: Gabriel Henkin
Violin: Madeleine Hocking
Cello: Clara Cho
Percussion: Jon Collazo
Piano: Kate Miller

Disintegrating Tape Loop (2025)

Foo Jeng is a Malaysian composer and pianist whose music incorporates elements of contemporary composition, improvisation, and electro-acoustics. He is the winner of the El Paso Original Music/New Ideas Competition and a finalist of the American Prize in Composition.

His music has been presented by the New Thread Quartet, Rasp.LA, New Chamber Ballet, Clark Art Institute, Concours International De Piano D’Orléans, Ilham Gallery, ArtsBasel, Yarn/Wire Institute, ArtsBasel, and St Petersburg International New Music Festival. As a performer, he’s been featured as a pianist at National Sawdust, OPERA America, DiMenna Center, Scholes Street Studio, Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Center, Time Is Art Festival, and the Borneo Jazz Festival.

He graduated from the Manhattan School of Music with a Masters of Music in Composition, where he is the recipient of the Giampaolo Bracali Award and Special Project Residency. He earned his Bachelors of Music in Piano Performance from Berklee College of Music.

Disintegrating Tape Loop (2025)

Wong Foo Jeng

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