Ein Liederkreis, der den Bosporus und die Themse verbindet – Resonanzen gewebte durch die Erinnerungen von Frauen Poesie von Christina Rossetti Musik von Rachel Beckles Willson Musiker: Rachel Beckles Willson (Gesang, Oud), Ciro Montanari (Tabla), Kostas Tsarouchis (Kontrabass), Evgenios Voulgaris (Yayli Tanbur) „Sing no Sad Songs for Me“ verbindet die modalen Musiktraditionen Read more…
I moved to Sicily in May 2017, in order to work as a volunteer with Francesco in various educational projects for asylum-seekers. We were keen to work with unaccompanied minors, and were trained to be legal gaurdians. Alongside this legal and pastoral work we have put on a series of Read more…
Sing no Sad Songs for Me – a cycle of pieces after the poetry of Christina Rossetti. For voice, oud, yayli tanbur, double-bass and tabla Premiered at St Ethelburga’s Centre for Peace and Reconciliation, London, on 30 June 2018 My imperialist grandfather Henry Beckles Willson was sent in 1918 to Palestine to decommission Read more…
Called after Ornina, goddess of music in Mesopotamia and ancient Syria, our ensemble is leading a revival in the tradition of female music-making by women in the Arab world. In the courts of Baghdad, Cordoba, and Medina women were highly trained in musical composition and performance, as well as in Read more…
Oudmigrations is an internet-based project dedicated to the journeys of ouds, their histories, and the stories attached to their makers, players, and owners. I developed the research thanks to a Major Research Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust, and worked in collaboration with musician, luthier and researcher Karim Othman-Hassan. When we launched in April Read more…
In autumn 2017 I collaborated with Isola Quassud, a theatre company based in Catania, Sicily, developing music within an intercultural production entitled ‘Welcome to Italy’. The aim was to immerse the audience in Italy’s disfunctional reception process for immigrants. Through a series of workshops involving reading, movement and singing, the actors drew Read more…
I’m intrigued by the interplay between the sounds that are conventionally part of concert music, and those conventionally excluded. I recently started bringing external sounds in, while continuing to use traditional instruments and – with a certain ambivalence – becoming a studio musician. In the works below I engage closely Read more…
My work is increasingly engaged with the play between sight and sound. While developing materials and techniques for a large-scale project exploring the marine environment I have published some short work-in-progress studies in audio-visual animation. They build on earlier collaborations with bassist James Banner, and artist Lin Li.
In Summer 2017, in collaboration with Francesco Iannuzzelli, I put together a concert to compliment an exhibition of photography by Steve McCurry. The exhibition’s primary selling point was the famous photograph of Afghan refugee Sharbat Gula. Rather than directly entering the debate about media exploitation of the dispossessed, we decided Read more…
I had the privelage to study composition with Ross Daly, under whose guidance I learned how to write in a modal idiom, and in a range of genres typical of the Ottoman era and broad west Asian region. One of these genres is the saz semai, which has a metre Read more…