Aftab Darvishi and Gerard Beljon by Cappella Amsterdam

Leonard Evers (artistic director alBahr – Mare Nostrum) thinks that too often a distinction is made between ‘Western’ music on the one hand and Eastern ‘Arab’ music on the other. This while, for centuries, there has been a blending of influences around the shores of the Mediterranean. In the music tradition, there has never been a hard division between east and west: the sea is a fluid centre of exchange. To demonstrate this, Evers developed alBahr – Mare Nostrum, a programme of (choral) music in which this centuries-old exchange can be clearly heard.

alBahr – Mare Nostrum (‘our sea’ in Arabic and Latin)

For the interpretation of alBahr – Mare Nostrum, Evers was inspired by the work Planctus Cygni by composer Gerard Beljon. Planctus Cygni sketches a picture of a swan restlessly gliding over the turbulent Mediterranean Sea, longing for a coast to call ‘home’. Evers: “The underlying thematic line is ‘longing’. Especially the longing for a stable place, a home. That’s also what many of the lyrics are about, like those by composers Gerard Beljon and Aftab Darvishi. Longing is a subject that defines almost all the music in this project, not only through the individual texts but also as a whole. Everyone longs for a home and you can hear this longing in alBahr – Mare Nostrum, through all the works, regardless of their musical genre.”
Arrangers Hugo Bouma, Maarten Ornstein, Marijn van Prooijen and Peter Vigh adapted traditional music from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Lebanon and Morocco for this project.
Especially for this occasion, Iranian-Dutch composer Aftab Darvishi is writing a new work in Farsi for choir and instrumental soloists: HamZad, Persian for ‘my companion’. The work is inspired by a poem by the Persian poet هوشنگ ابتهاج (Hooshang Ebtehaj) about the longing for a once-heard voice among the stars. Darvishi is a much sought-after composer who has previously worked with the Kronos Quartet, Hermes Ensemble, Oerknal and De Ereprijs. In 2019, her opera Turan Dokht premiered during the Holland Festival.
More info here