Composer: Sadie Harrison
Performer: ANIM Junior Ensemble of Traditional Instruments, Ensemble Zohra, Cuatro Puntos, Kevin Bishop
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Toccata
Catalogue: TOCC0342
Release: 2016
Size: 234 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: cover
01. Omar: Arghawan (The Judas Tree)
Harrison: Dast be Dast
02. Allah Hu (This is God)
Harrison: Gulistan-e Nur (The Rosegarden of Light)
03. I. Interlude 1, Bahar-e Nastaran-bihag
04. II. Movement 1, Bahar-e Nastaran-bihag
05. III. Interlude 2, Shlrin dokhtar-e maldar
06. IV. Movement 2, ShIrin dokhtar-e maldar
07. V. Interlude 3, Watan Jan
08. VI. Movement 3, Watan Jan
09. trad.: Qataghani Folksong
10. Sarmast: Ay Shakhe Gul (Oh Flower Branch) (arr. K. Bishop for string ensemble)
11. trad.: Logari Folksong
12. trad.: Pesta Farosh (The Pistachio Seller) (arr. K. Bishop for string ensemble)
13. trad.: Ghunchai-e-Sorkh (Red Rosebud)
This album is the fruit of a remarkable collaborative project, a kind of ‘Malala in music’. Here the students – some of them orphans and street vendors – of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music in Kabul meet the US string sextet Cuatro Puntos. The student musicians include a ground-breaking girls’ ensemble – a remarkable achievement, given the conditions prevailing in contemporary Afghanistan.
They play both western and traditional Afghan instruments, and in Sadie Harrison’s Gulistan-e Nur: The Rosegarden of Light, they perform Afghan songs and dances which Harrison’s music then explores and develops. Kevin Bishop’s arrangements of Afghan tunes likewise link east and west.
This recording is evidence of a visionary venture celebrating the power of music to transform lives as it also revives and rebuilds Afghan musical traditions.
Sadie Harrison was made a Visiting Fellow at Goldsmiths, London, in recognition of her unique research-based integration of contemporary composition and traditional Afghan music. In the same year a CD of her chamber music from Toccata Classics was described in The Observer as ‘a disc of glittering intensity’. Sadie Harrison has a unique career-path: alone among composers as a former archaeologist, she now also works part-time as a gardener.