Program Notes for The Wedding

Program Notes for The Wedding

Hussein Janmohamed

Having accepted this Chorus America opportunity to write for choirs across North America, I hoped to compose a piece of music that would call forth wisdom from powerful human stories touching the core of the human heart and connecting to a common quest for peace. I chose to base this Consortium piece on an historic event in Mombasa, Kenya (1950) when a bus carrying 26 members of my mother Neena and my Auty Kathun's extended family, returning from a wedding of their older brother Jimmy to his bride Roshan, plunged off the Likoni Ferry into the Indian Ocean, taking the lives of 17 family members. My mother and Auty are the only two living survivors. I dedicate this piece to them, to the loving memory of the Verjee family members who lost their lives, and to the generations of family members who continue the healing process.

In 2004 my work took me near the Likoni ferry site. My entire being shook with echoes of the accident. I felt and heard the screams, the panic, the sounds of the voices tapering off, the silence, the depths of the sea, the loss. The event's memory was in my cells. I reflected on how new generations could transform and heal inter-generational pain. Music seemed to be a powerful vehicle. Thus, the genesis of this piece.

The piece entitled The Wedding renders a celebratory Gujarati folk song Taaliyo a taale (commonly heard at weddings) that was sung just before the bus plunged. The joyous music ends in suspended long tones that signal a powerfully processional chant La illaha ilallah as recited at Ismaili funerals. Harmonies inspired by the chant cradle spiritually-inspired texts expressing the soul's longing for unity with its maker. In humble submission, the soul is united with Allah (God) to Whom we belong and to Whom we shall return (Quran 2:156). Solace and comfort are gained through the knowledge that the sould of those who lost their lives are again joined with their Beloved in an abode of peace--a spiritual union.

Islam in all its diversity of interpretation and expression is a dynamic faith of peace that continues to find its voice afresh in global vernaculars. Historic cultural encounters with diverse knowledge systems across the Muslim world have been vital to generate new collective knowledge that benefit all of society. Art and culture in these contexts also developed through enlightened encounters between cultures that recognized a common humanity from which diversity flourished. In today's globalized societies we are compelled to find ways to join hearts and hands across manifold cultural harbours, and call forth our common humanity so we can weave our diverse, coloured threads into beautiful tapestries of hope, peace, and unity.

The Wedding, Copyright © October 2019 by Hussein Janmohamed