The master of the oud, Rahim AlHaj brings his powerful Letters from Iraq to New Zealand audiences with an ensemble of local musicians.
Photo: Supplied
Rahim AlHaj was born in Baghdad in 1968 and began playing the oud – the Arabic lute – at the age of nine. In the 1980s, his political activism against the regime of Saddam Hussein led to him being tortured and imprisoned twice. After his release, he fled Iraq in fear of his life and eventually settled in the USA where he now lives in Albuquerque.
His collaborators for this concert were the New Zealand String Quartet, double bass player Joan Perarnau Garriga and percurssionist Justin DeHart.
BARBER: String Quartet Op 11
The New Zealand String Quartet opened the concert with Samuel Barber's only string quartet written between the world wars when he was only 25.
It's most famous part is the second movement Adagio, which is often used at funerals or in movies to accompany scenes of war or anguish. Its general manner is of striving higher perhaps for something unattainable.
Rahim ALHAJ: Dream
A solo work from Rahim AlHaj.
Letters from Iraq
These pieces of music are inspired by stories drawn from real life about ordinary people whose lives are damaged by constant warfare in Iraq.
As commentator Devon Leger has written: “There’s no attempt here at sensationalism. AlHaj focuses as much on the small things torn from people during war, as on the larger moments of impending death that scar the psyche.”
And as AlHaj explained to Richard Betts of The Listener: “I wanted to tell the story of the people. The concentration is not on the violence, it’s the emotion of the people who lived through the event, so the music is always about the story itself, not my virtuosity or how good I am.”
But there is hope as well. AlHaj goes on: “We have to keep the hope alive. Think about your family, your grandkids. You work hard and sacrifice yourself for them. Which kind of world do you want to leave? Hate, discrimination, racism? Or love, peace and compassion? It’s as simple as that.”
Rahim AlHaj and the group play six of the eight Letters and they start with Letter No 4, ‘The Last Time We Will Fly Birds’, which is about a teenage boy who kept homing pigeons. One day while he was travelling away to a hill to release his birds, a car bomb exploded and blew his house up. He no longer had a rooftop as a sanctuary where his birds would find home and as a place where he could meet his girlfriend.
Rahim ALHAJ: The Last Time We Will Fly Birds, from Letters from Iraq
Rahim ALHAJ: Eastern Love, from Letters from Iraq
Rahim ALHAJ: Unspoken Word, from Letters from Iraq
Rahim ALHAJ: Forbidden Attraction, from Letters from Iraq
Rahim ALHAJ: Fly Home, from Letters from Iraq
ALHAJ: Running Boy, from Letters from Iraq
Recorded by RNZ Concert, Auckland Concert Chamber, 17 October 2022
Producer: Tim Dodd; Engineer: Adrian Hollay
