Chaya Czernowin Gives Voice to a Wounded World

"Two Iranian composers were featured; only one, Amen Feizabadi, could attend in person. Golfam Khayam, the other, conveyed a message pleading for peace and extolling music as a "free bird who knows no border." The Russian composer Dmitri Kourliandski, also on the program in Witten, left his homeland in 2022 after participating in protests against the war in Ukraine. The Israeli-born composer Chaya Czernowin, the focus of several concerts, has described herself as being profoundly alienated from her country, and she has also decried repression in the United States, where she now lives."

"The festival, which is organized by West German Radio and has been running in its current form since 1969, favors experimental idioms that customarily avoid obvious political messaging or clear cultural signposts. Kourliandski, for example, presented a string quartet, "Partially Restored Landscapes," in which fragile, brittle sonorities surface amid long silences. It felt like a refuge conscious of its vulnerability. Feizabadi's "Ungezähmter Fluss" ("Untamed River"), edges toward social significance by invoking the erotic mysticism of the great Persian poet Rumi, but the dissonant grunge of the musical language keeps worldly passions at bay."

"Khayam was an outlier, in that the work of hers performed, "Seven Valleys of Love," has tonal leanings and incorporates an old Iranian folk melody called "Deylaman." This being "

"Global disaster shadowed this year's Witten Days for New Chamber Music, an ostensibly insular contemporary-music festival that takes place each spring in the Ruhr Valley, in Germany. Two Iranian composers were featured; only one, Amen Feizabadi, could attend in person. Golfam Khayam, the other, conveyed a message pleading for peace and extolling music as a "free bird who knows no border." The Russian composer Dmitri Kourliandski, also on the program in Witten, left his homeland in 2022 after participating in protests against the war in Ukraine."

Witten Days for New Chamber Music in Germany took place in the Ruhr Valley and featured two Iranian composers, with Amen Feizabadi attending and Golfam Khayam sending a peace message. Golfam Khayam described music as a borderless “free bird” and pleaded for peace. Dmitri Kourliandski, a Russian composer who left Russia in 2022 after protesting the war in Ukraine, presented a string quartet with fragile sonorities and long silences. Chaya Czernowin, Israeli-born and living in the United States, described herself as alienated from her country and criticized repression in the United States. The festival’s experimental style often avoided direct political messaging, making the political urgency only intermittently audible.

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