DAY 4: LOST IN STRANGE LANDS
"In the debts of darkness... One still maintains a little glimmer of hope." B. Boochani
Music and lyrics
Leoš Janáček (1854-1928)
On an overgrown path (1911)
for ensemble, arranged by Thorsten Encke
Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943)
Symphonic Dances op.45 (1940)
for ensemble, arranged by Thorsten Encke
Texts from refugees and emigrants
Reading from the book: “No Friends but the Mountains” by Behrouz Boochani
occupation
musica assoluta
Thorsten Encke. conductor
Love of home, loss of home, desire for home: the concert lets these experiences and longings shine through in the music. Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances are one of the greatest examples of the Russian-feeling soul of the composer who emigrated to America. On December 9, 2017, The Saturday Paper published “A Letter from Manus Island,” an essay written by Behrouz Boochani, a Kurdish-Iranian journalist and refugee who was held along with hundreds of fellow prisoners on Manus Island, off the Australian coast. Boochani writes with a radically poetic voice. The writing, dictated to a friend via smartphone, is a critique of contemporary practices of humanitarianism and the ways in which politics, the market and technology have changed the moral dispositions of our public life. She examines the troubling effects of modern politics - the refugee as a human object and threat, not as a vulnerable victim and individual.