Celestial Bodies

A multi-channel sound and music work for RANEEN Festival of Art, Muttrah, Oman.

Under the auspices of Oman’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth, RANEEN is a new large-scale festival and event providing a platform for artists to explore and express the cultural changes occurring within society. By employing various artistic techniques to respond to the buildings and sites of Mutrah, artists will evoke memories of the past and reflections of the present to convey their messages to audiences. Featuring work by leading Omani and international artists, RANEEN will target both domestic and international visitors to Muscat.

As part of the RANEEN, I was commissioned by curator David Drake to create a multi-channel music and sound-art response to artist Luke Jerram’s Museum of the Moon artwork, which was presented, site-specific, in the courtyard of the historic Bait Al Khonji house in the old port town of Mutrah. This was a continuous exhibition for the duration of the festival, with specific showings held at dusk every evening.

“ …I spent time in Muttrah before the festival recording the textures of this historic area, including the liveliness of the Souq and the bustle of the surrounding streets; I also was able to travel to other significant places in Oman such as the home of the traditional ‘Dhow’ boat builders in Sur, the town of Bahla and its ancient potteries, and the wondrously beautiful Jebel Akhdar mountains and the Rub Al Khali desert. I captured soundscape textures using surround, contact and hydrophone recording techniques, which then informed my creative response.
The moon has many meanings in different cultures around the World and I wanted the immersive sound to place it within a context, as it has many resonances in Oman and the Arabian Peninsula: the cycles of the moon are intertwined with faith, also, more specifically the historic seafaring traditions, including navigation, which along with the stars, the Bedouin also used to traverse the desert. I was also influenced by contemporary voices, including the work of writer Jokha Alharthi. The original Arabic title of her International Booker Prize winning novel ‘Celestial Bodies’, the inspiration for the title of the project, is literally translated as ‘Ladies of the Moon’, which is also a poetic metaphor for beauty.
These auto-ethnographic elements are then enhanced with a more personal musical response, in the form of a composition, inspired on a musical exchange of ideas with the Omani oud player Amal Waqar. This collaboration is a very important part of the process, in which I integrated Amal’s improvisatory responses to my original composition, in a shared musical journey.
This idea was also manifested in my responses to recordings of traditional music from the archives of The Oman Centre for Traditional Music, which I was privileged to be given access by The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth. These sounds, along with specially recorded poem in Omani dialect also formed part of the sound world of the work. A fascination with the musicality of language and dialect informs much of my previous work, such as “Atgyfodi” a collaboration with St FagansMuseum of History and I was particularly struck by the uniqueness of the “Nadbah” war cry chant of the Musandam region, which is performed during celebration rituals of gathering, and to greet travellers, which resonated strongly as an important theme of the RANEEN event. I also integrate a traditional seafaring song from the maritime ‘Al Nahma’ folk tradition that Omani sailors would sing before leaving on a long journey. Very moving, and I was very fortunate to have guidance from Ministry musicologist Zakariya Al Alawi during my research, and he now speaks a few words of Cymraeg!
It was very special to be invited to create ‘Celestial Bodies’ with Luke Jerram and to have an opportunity to share ideas and meet with contemporary Omani artists and musicians as part of RANEEN, I feel that this is only the beginning of this creative conversation, and it would be very special to be able to share the work in Cymru/Wales.”