Rachel Corrie was a peace activist who died while trying to prevent the demolition of a home in Gaza.
Beati pacifici, quoniam filii Dei vocabantur. / Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. (Matthew 5:9)
Zaid Jabri:
“In 2010, a Palestinian soprano asked me to write a piece for soprano and piano. At the time, I was reading a lot about the situation of the Palestinian people, and had just learned about Rachel Corrie. Corrie was a peace activist who died while trying to prevent the demolition of a home in Gaza. I was touched by the story of a young woman who had left her own home to take up the cause of dispossessed people, and who met such a tragic death. One evening, as some verses from the Beatitudes, “Beati pacifici,” were ringing in my mind, I had my hand on the piano playing F#, G#, A, echoing the rhythm of those syllables. That became the basis the six-minutes song, which I wrote that very night. The piece was performed in many venues on both sides of the Atlantic. This recording was made by the Palestinian pianist Ghadeer Abaido, and the Paris-based Palestinian soprano Dima Bawab.”
Monika Weiss:
“I first heard the music of Zaid Jabri in 2017 when I attended MATA’s festival New Music from the Islamic World, where his Beati pacifici was performed. I was deeply moved by every note of this piece. At the time I was already working on a public project devoted to victims of violence, both colonial and gender-based, which later became the monument/anti-monument, Nirbhaya. It struck me that both Jyoti Singh (aka ‘Nirbhaya’) and Rachel Corrie were 23 at the time of their killing. I felt this piece so strongly that I reached out to Zaid in hopes we might work together one day. Fast forward, earlier this year Zaid told me he was planning a new release of the piece and asked if I wanted to create a silent film as a counterpoint to accompany the music. Suddenly, I knew exactly what the film would be. I saw the color of red, but not just the red of blood. I imagined blossoming flowers growing out of the tortured body and out of the site of her gruesome killing. In Lament for Rachel Corrie (2021) I filmed and choreographed performer Ruth Blair Moyers to create a sense of slow, horizontal and silent lament. I montaged the film to create a sense of the body as if forever suspended outside of time and space. In the film the lamenter’s red scarf blossoms and blooms, in spite of the horror. In memory of Rachel Corrie.”
Zaid Jabri is an award-winning composer based in Kraków, Poland. Born in Damascus, he was drawn to music from an early age. After studying violin with Riyad Sukar in Damascus, he entered the Academy of Music in Kraków, where he completed his master’s degree under the supervision of Zbigniew Bujarski, and his doctorate under the directorship of Krzysztof Penderecki. Jabri’s background has alerted him to the dense histories of shared and reworked harmonic and instrumental strategies across the East/West divide. His music has been performed throughout Europe, North America, and the Middle East.
More info at the Streaming Museum, The Arts and World Affairs
Zaid Jabri at Donemus
Links to the recording on Donemus Records
Composers in the crosshairs of our attention