UnRest Concert: Immigrants & Refugees 03.18.2017
UnRest: Immigrants & Refugees
We recently kicked off our UnRest Musical Resistance and Benefit Concert Series with a concert highlighting the experiences and musical contributions of immigrants and refugees on March 18th, 2017. All the music on our first program encompassed works solely by immigrants and refugees. Our hope was to shine a light on the hardships experienced by immigrants and refugees both locally and across the globe, while also acknowledging their important musical contributions.
Big thanks to all the musicians who performed, for generously donating their time and talents. And thanks to all who attended; we raised $445 in ticket sales which we’ve donated directly to the ACLU! Stay tuned for more concerts in our UnRest Series.
Enjoy the live performance here:
Program:
Traditional Arabic Folk Melodies
- Longa Nahawand (Egypt) 5:54
- Moran Ethra Hama’lain, “Prayer for Peace” (Syria) 7:01
Performed by: Mia Nardi-Huffman, Violin
Is My Soul Asleep 9:10
Performed By: Claire Plumb, Soprano
Matthew Rupert, Piano
Composed By: James Matheson
Text By: Antonio Machado
Text:
Is my soul asleep?
Have those beehives that labor
at night stopped? And the water-
wheel of thought,
is it dry, the cups empty,
wheeling, carrying only shadows?
No, my soul is not asleep,
It is awake, wide awake.
It neither sleeps nor dreams, but watches,
its clear eyes open,
far-off things, and listens
at the shores of the great silence.
Nocturne in E Minor, Op. 72, No. 1 (Posthumous) 17:00
Performed by: Kristina Soriano, Piano
Composed by: Frederic Chopin
Sonatina 22:45
- Allegretto grazioso
- Tempo di Siciliana
- Scherzo- Rondo
Performed by: Duo Bohéme
Composed by: Mario Castalnuovo-Tedesco
Aubada: Theme & Variations for Piano 40:49
- Birth
- Morning Song
- Tango
- Salaam
Performed By: Matthew Rupert, Piano
Composed By: Suad Bushnaq
Armenian Folk Melodies
- Apricots Tree 51:11
- Crane 54:33
Performed By: Azat Fishyan, Violin
Jeoffrey Ullerich, Piano
Composed By: Komitas
Program Notes:
Traditional Arabic Folk Melodies
Longa Nahawand (from Smithsonian Folkways)
An instrumental genre Longa in the mode Nahawand.
A rousing instrumental composition in the melodic mode nahawand, composed by the famous Egyptian composer Riyâdh As-Sambâti. As a genre, the longa is composed in four-beat timing, with a number of sections, each of which is repeated. In addition, there is a recurring melodic refrain. The final new section is in waltz timing, after which the recurring section returns. The longa is a secular piece, and is often performed as the opening number at a concert.
Moran ethra hama’lain
“Growing up, I spent many vacations visiting my Sito (meaning grandmother in colloquial Arabic) and extended family in New Eagle, Pennsylvania. She was a Syrian Orthodox Christian, and so we would attend church with her during our visits (fun fact: my brother and I have our names inscribed on a stained glass window in that Syrian Orthodox church near Pittsburgh!). The chants sung are memorable to me, as I found the modes used in traditional Syrian church music to be very beautiful. This chant, which I am playing on solo violin, was taught by the archbishop Mar Gregorios Yohanna Ibrahim, who resided in Aleppo until his kidnapping (along with archbishop Boulos Yazigi) in 2013 near the Turkish border of Syria. Their whereabouts remain unknown to this day, but his prayer for peace is still relevant. It is in the ancient language of Aramaic, which is still used within the Syrian Orthodox church, and the text, which repeats over and over, is “Moran ethra hama’lain”, or “Lord, have mercy on us”. The accompanying sermon prays to end the use of violence, bring peace to family members of the deceased, and relief from all of the terrors of war in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Egypt.” ~Mia Nardi-Huffman
Is My Soul Asleep
“The great Spanish poet Antonio Machado who moved and traveled regularly throughout his life – indeed ending his days displaced from his native land by the Spanish Civil war – here describes the internal landscape of the poet. A rootless elopement of the mind and senses, his poems return to the timid and preoccupied as dispatches from the frontiers of experience.” ~Eduardo Suleiman
Nocturne in E Minor, Op. 72, No. 1 (Posthumous)
Frederic Chopin was born on February 22, 1810 in Warsaw, Poland, to a French father and Polish mother. He studied piano and attended the Warsaw Conservatory before leaving for Paris less than a month before the outbreak of the November 1830 Uprising. He would never return to his native country because of conflict with Russia, thus becoming one of the many expatriates of the Polish Great Emigration. He never considered himself to be French, despite his father’s French origins, and always saw himself as a Pole. This Nocturne, which is a musical composition that is inspired by, or evocative of, the night, was written between 1827-1829 but was published after his death.
Sonatina
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968) was an Italian composer known as one of the foremost composers of guitar in the twentieth century. His career as a guitar composer began upon meeting Spanish guitarist Andres Segovia in 1932 which inspired his Guitar Concerto No. 1. Many of his nearly one hundred compositions for guitar were subsequently dedicated to Segovia, who was an enthusiast of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s style. Other influences on Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s works include literary works, many of which he set to music, and his Jewish heritage. His Violin Concerto No. 2, written at the request of Jascha Heifetz, was an expression of his Jewish pride in the face of the anti-Semitic notions sweeping Europe at the time. But what helped inspire his works also resulted in stifling his career, as the fascist government enacted Italian racial laws which banned his works from the radio and resulted in canceled concerts.
Castelnuovo-Tedesco wrote to fellow Italian Arturo Toscanini who had recently immigrated to the United States, and Toscanini agreed to sponsor him as an immigrant to the US. He was able to escape fascist Italy just before the outbreak of World War II in Europe. As with many European composers of the day, Castelnuovo-Tedesco found his way to Hollywood where he was able to become of film composer under contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer , where he worked for nearly fifteen years on nearly 200 film scores. Denying that his work in the film industry influenced his style, he continued to compose operas and works based on American Poetry, Jewish Liturgy, and the Bible; however during this time he taught many of today’s most prominent film composers, including John Williams. He passed away in Beverly Hills, California in 1968 at the age of 72.
Armenian Folk Melodies
Komitas (1869-1935) was an Armenian priest, composer, singer and a choir master. He is the father of the Armenian music as he spent most of his life collecting Armenian folk melodies and songs and putting them onto paper. From 1915 to 1919, around 1.5 million Armenians were tortured and killed by the Ottoman Government. Many of the survivors had to flee their homes and find settlements in the nearby countries. By the intervention of Turkish poet Mehmet Erim Yurdakul and the US ambassador Henry Morgenthau, Komitas was not killed, but after witnessing the suffering and the killing of his people, he developed post-traumatic stress disorder and eventually was placed in a psychiatric hospital in Paris, where he died in agony.