Songs of Immigrants

In October 2013, tragedy struck near the shore of the Italian island of Lampedusa, the majority of the hundreds of people who died in the shipwreck were Eritreans.

The composition is not meant to present any plot. The documentary inserts played from cassette decks in their harsh roughness are not even arranged subsequently in time. I am not trying to depict the tragedy. My aim is to deliver music of the people who sailed for better life and I am juxtaposing it with the sounds of situations which came before and after the tragedy itself. The music structure is based entirely on material derived from recordings of Eritrean ethnic music, documentary takes from public resources and sounds of animals inhabiting the area of Lampedusa island. I am cross-fading this material among musicians and tapes, or "resynthetizing" into the string quartet.