Music Event: Listening Gaza: Reading by Bayan Hadda & Music performed by Gazelleband
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Date: Sunday, May 26th
Start Time: 9pm
End Time: 10pm Gazelleband present the music of Palestine and a wider region through the medium of traditional string instruments, the oud and buzuq. Led by Gazan oud player Reem Anbar and Irish-Mancunian music researcher Louis Brehony, the group perform internationally at concerts halls, festivals, universities and solidarity gatherings. The only Scotland date in their worldwide tour, this Gazelleband performance features a new set of improvised and traditional tunes, blended with Palestinian storytelling.
The musical performance will be preceded by a reading by Bayan Haddad.
What does it mean to write in times of emergency? Writers from Gaza are living, witnessing and documenting the genocide as it unfolds. How can we amplify their voices? What is the role of the reader? Join us as we read voices from Gaza and think of meaningful interventions to actualise their messages.
About the GuestsReem Anbar was raised in Gaza. She rose to prominence as a young musician in the early 2000s, and was quickly heralded as the city’s first female oud player. With an affinity for tarab - the ecstatic traditions of Arab regional music - and the Palestinian heritage of song, Reem absorbed the lessons of older generations of oud players and forged her own path as a self-taught player.
By the time she left Palestine in 2017, Reem was appearing regularly on Palestinian and Arabic TV, at concerts, and working as a music therapist and teacher in Gaza’s refugee camps. She has since gone on to become an international performer.
Louis Brehony is a musician, activist, researcher and educator. He is author of the book Palestinian Music in Exile: Voices of Resistance (2023), editor of Ghassan Kanafani: Selected Political Writings (2024), and director of the award-winning film Kofia: A Revolution Through Music (2021). He writes regularly on Palestine and political culture and performs internationally as a buzuq player and guitarist.
Bayan Haddad is a Palestinian scholar and an instructor of English literature at Birzeit University. She is the George Antonius Birzeit Visiting Fellow for 2024 and she researches fiction from Palestine and Northern Ireland in light of trauma studies.