Traditions Under Pressure
Du Yun & Oslo Sinfonietta / OK Miss / Ali Sethi
Kulturkirken Jakob
19/9, 20.00
250/150 NOK
(Pre-concert talk at 19.00)
The evening is a musical itinerary in three parts with brief intervals for refreshments in between.
19.00 Pre-concert panel: Traditions Under Pressure
Du Yun, Ali Sethi and Ane Roggen in conversation with Rob Young (moderator)
The journeys now taken by millions of migrants force societies and local traditions to blend, accommodate and integrate. As societies change, so does their music, in cultural shifts that are both enriching and pressurising. This panel discussion will explore the benefits and challenges of this ongoing process.
20.00 Du Yun: Where We Lost Our Shadows (2019)
21.00 Du Yun + OK Miss
22.00 Ali Sethi Trio
Concert 1:
Du Yun: Where We Lost Our Shadows (2019)
Sofia Jernberg – mezzo soprano
Ali Sethi – male voice
Shayna Dunkelman – percussion
Christian Eggen – conductor
Khaled Jarrar – film
Oslo Sinfonietta
An urgent new work by New York based Pulitzer Prize winner and Chinese composer Du Yun investigates the plight of refugees, in myth, history and the violent present.
Where We Lost Our Shadows is a powerful and timely new work for orchestra, including disturbing film sequences of a Syrian family crossing the Aegean Sea, shot by Khaled Jarrar, a Palestinian visual artist based in Ramallah. His footage shows just the most recent example of human migration that Yun’s composition explores, as well as expanding into a vision of human movement as a perpetual factor in world history.
Du Yun’s emotive music itself follows the migration of a musical language – devotional qawwali music that travelled from medieval Muslim India to Central Asia, Bengal, and South Asia – and incorporates text by the Palestinian poet Ghassan Zaqtan. Together with Oslo Sinfonietta, Sofia Jernberg (Swedish jazz/experimental singer), Ali Sethi (Pakistani vocal star) and New York percussionst Shayna Dunkelman perform this urgent and important musical testament that shifts between political reality and allegorical representations of global exodus.
Produced in collaboration with Oslo Sinfonietta.
Concert 2:
Du Yun + OK Miss
Du Yun – vocal/piano
Aakash Mittal – winds
Nich Olas Farrell – guitar/electronics
Grey McMurray – guitar
Shayna Dunkleman – drums
For the second part of the concert, Du Yun enters her ‘indie pop diva’ mode as leader of OK Miss. She founded this experimental band as both a rock band and chamber ensemble, and many points in-between. The group has performed at museums, concert halls, theatres, and for silent films allover the world.
Concert 3:
Ali Sethi Trio
Ali Sethi – vocal
Grey McMurray – guitar
Shayna Dunkelman – drums
Ali Sethi is a successful vocal star and author from Pakistan who, as well as having various hit singles, appeared in the 2013 film The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Here he demonstrates his acclaimed, soaring voice – blending elements of Pakistani classical music and global pop – in a solo set for the first time in Norway, accompanied by two members of OK Miss.
Supported by Sparebankstiftelsen DNB.
Where We Lost our Shadows is Co-commissioned by American Composers Orchestra, Southbank Centre, Carnegie Hall, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and Cal Performances - University of California, Berkeley. Part of the score was written during a residency at the C3A Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía (Córdoba, Spain)
(Photo: Qin Zhen)
