Seamstress, by Phonodelica

Seamstress

by Phonodelica

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Full Digital Discography

5

releases

Get all 5 Phonodelica releases available on Bandcamp.

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of The Drowning Valley, Offerings | قربان, Seamstress, Preludes for Social Distancing, and HIDDEN ASSEMBLAGES. , and , .

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1.	Shahrat (1938) 04:30	lyrics	buy track
Donia: Where were you born? Shahrat: I was born in Jaffa, in 1938. And we fled to Nablus. And I learned how to sew. And I became a seamstress.
2.	Huda (1896) feat. Huda Asfour 04:54		buy track
3.	Prelude: A Deep, Unbridled Joy 03:42		buy track
4.	Sania (1963) 09:50		buy track
5.	Interlude: The Pink Cabinet 03:05		buy track
6.	Waed (2015) 01:18		buy track
7.	What God Has Written Will Be 06:23		buy track
8.	Canon in Memory of Ibrahim Abdel-Halim Daoud 03:20		buy track
9.	Postlude: Childhood 03:08		buy track

about

Music from the documentary film and opera, Seamstress. Download includes a previously unreleased bonus track. This album was funded in part by The National Opera Center of America, OPERA AMERICA's Discovery grants for female composers. For score perusal copies and ensemble performance requests please email doniajarrar@gmail.com

Based on oral history interviews I conducted with Palestinian women from different generations and social sectors in occupied Palestine (The West Bank and Gaza) from the summer of 2012 through the winter of 2017. Blending audio interviews, photography, raw and archival footage with live chamber orchestra and dance performances, Seamstress aims to create a moving and powerful portrait of love, strength, and resistance in the face of injustice and misinformation. The women interviewed include my aunt, who lives in Ramallah, a seamstress named Shahrat who fled from Jaffa to Nablus pre-Nakba, former students from the Deir Ghassaneh music center, and current artistic collaborators and colleagues, including Palestinian multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Huda Asfour. Song texts are adapted from the interviews, weaving together their different voices, perspectives and experiences in a way that challenges current existing media stereotypes of Palestinian culture and womanhood, providing a global context for Palestinian women’s narratives by focusing on shared universal themes of memory, identity, exile, displacement, femininity and love. The oral histories draw unifying connections between Palestinian women’s individual and collective memories in response to an undermining geographical separation across the West Bank, Israel, Gaza and the Diaspora.

credits

released February 6, 2021

Music composed, edited and produced by: Donia Jarrar
featuring Huda Asfour on tracks 1 and 2
Live Recording Engineers: Dave Greenspan, Jeff Gazdacko, Mitchell Graham
Mastering: Patterson McKinney on tracks 1-9, Donia Jarrar on 10

Conducted by Arianne Abela
Vocals and oud on tracks 1-2: Huda Asfour
Choir: Tanner Porter, Dory Mead, Paolo Debuque, Samuel Kidd
Violins: Grace Kawamura and Anita Dumar
Viola: Erin Napier
Cello: Julia Knowles
Bass: Tommy Hawthorne

Percussion: Julian Bridges and Ian Lang

Piano: Melissa Coppola on all tracks except for 1 and 2, which are performed by the composer herself, Donia Jarrar

Flute: Anna Thompson
Clarinet: Kelsey Stewart
Oboe: Kinsey Fournier
Bassoon: Maddy Wildman

Album artwork by Yasmine Nasser Diaz

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about

Phonodelica Los Angeles, California

PHONODELICA is the experimental sound project from Palestinian-Egyptian-American composer, producer and performer Donia Jarrar.

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