This Burning Mass - A Feast of Colours (2022) 
for Ensemble 

Commissioned for Riot Ensemble
by Britten Pears Arts for the 73rd Aldeburgh Festival 2022 
Premiere: 19th June 2022
Riot Ensemble, Aaron Holloway-Nahum
Britten Studio, Snape Maltings, Suffolk

This Burning Mass - A Feast Of Colours

31.08.2024 KKL Luzern, Internationale Ensemble Modern Akademie, Lucerne Festival. Dirigent Daniel Huertes

Choral (2024) für Ensemble mit Klavier

Touch (2024)
for flute, saxophone, violin, double bass, piano and  percussion

Ensemble Suono Giallo
2024.7
Italy, Sansepolcro

Touch (2024)-Ensemble Suono Giallo

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

Dedicated to the Hamburger Kammersängerin Gabriele Rossmanith.
Commissioned for the 1st Philharmonic Chamber Concert of the 2024|25 season by the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg.
Recording from the dress rehearsal on December 7, 2024, in the Elbphilharmonie, Kleiner Saal.

Gabriele Rossmanith (voice), Solveigh Rose (violin), Katharina von Held (double bass), Saida Timina (piano), and other members of the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg. Yixie Shen (conductor).

——————————————————————————

Based on the poem of the same name by Ida Dehmel:

Ich sitze dunkle Frau in meinem Zimmer,
stille, große, dunkle (*) Frau.
Weiß ist das Zimmer, weit seine Wände;
weiß ist mein Kleid, mein Webstuhl weiß.
Und vor mir buntgehäuft ein Schatz Perlschnüre. 
Was will ich dunkle Frau denn weben? - Mein Leben.

Weiß, weiß und golden sind die Farben meiner Jugend,
ein morgenblauer Himmel über mir. 
Himmelschlüssel blühn auf unsern Wiesen. 
Viele kleine Blumen will ich weben, 
zart ein glückliches Lachen dazwischen, 
Alles leuchtet dem spielenden Kind.

Mutter starb. Die Farben werden blasser. 
Dunkle Trauerzweige sprießen auf,
schwanke Linien aus flimmerndem Grund, 
Thränen glitzern, Sehnsuchtsthränen.
Kind, ich große Frau möcht gern dich trösten; 
sieh, ich setz ein funkelnd Sternlein über dich.

Und nun mischen sich die bunten Perlen: 
stolz und heftig schießt ein Blutrot hoch 
durch ein trotziges Gelb in schroffen Kanten, 
hell im Kampf mit strengen grauen Mächten
bäumt die aufwärtsflammende Seele sich:
rot und golden sind die Farben dieser Jungfrau.

Und aus Rot und Gold paart sich ein Schrei nach Liebe.
Rosen blühn aus meinen Händen auf,
jeder Kelch voll Tau und Sonnentraum.
Schwer in Büscheln rankt sich ein Clematisstrauch
um die Rosen lilasanft ins Blaue;
die Verheißung glüht aus allen Blüten.

Die Erfüllung log. Nun wirren sich die Fäden.
Fahl und grell verschlingen sich die Schnüre.
Jeder Weg ein Irrweg, und kein Kreis geschlossen.
Zuchtlos drängt sich wildes Gestrüpp
über meine Wiesen, meinen Blumenteppich;
und der Stern der Mutter birgt sich hinter Nebeln.

Da – ein klarer Klang: stark: eines Helden Ton.
Schwarz wie der Ursprung, golden wie das Licht,
und moosgrün wie der Wald, aus dem die ersten Menschen kamen.

Auch blau sein Himmel, aber mittagsblau;
auch rot sein Blut, doch nordlichtnächtig rot.
Und über Alles breitet sich ein(*) Glanz.

————————————————————————

Photo © Claudia Höhne

Das Perlgewebe (2024) for string quintet, piano and voice [Text by Ida Dehmel]

Beat Furrer, AER (excerpt)

Metal contrabass clarinet : Alain Billard
Ensemble intercontemporain conducted by Susanna Mälkki
Electronic : Yann Robin / Robin Meier / IRCAM


Art of Metal III (2008, 25'), for metal contrabass clarinet, ensemble and electronic

Metamorphosen über die Erkenntnisse Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz zur Musiktheorie für Chor und Orchester 2016

Partitur music score

UNTER ALLEN MOEGLICHEN DIE BESTE... Teil 1

Love, Crystal and Stone
a song cycle on Selection of poems by
Federico García Lorca

I-Deseo
II-Romance de la luna, luna
III-La balada del agua del mar
IV-Arqueros
V-¡Ay!, el grito deja en el viento
VI-Casida de las palomas oscuras
VII-La granada

composed for TAK Ensemble
Performed on September 27th, 2018, Qubit Space, New York, NY

Love, Crystal and Stone: IV - Arqueros

for Chinese Instruments , Live Recording World Premiere Beijing Concert Hall , January 7th 2021 , Chinese Bamboo Flute Orchestra 

中国乐器，现场录音世界首演北京音乐厅，2021年1月7日，中国竹笛乐队

https://soundcloud.com/chinesebamboofluteorchestra

Das Perlgewebe (2024) for string quintet, piano and voice [Text by Ida Dehmel]

Yixie Shen

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