The Crying Souls is a single movement work for 6 part a cappella choir.
The Crying Souls was written as a response to the chemical weapons attacks that happened
in August 2013 in Damascus when more than 1,300 innocent civilian including children were
massacred. This work expresses my endless sadness to the death of innocent people.
My spiritual experience as a child chanting the Baqashot at the well-known Ades Synagogue
in Jerusalem also inspired this composition. Baqashot are collections of supplications, songs
and prayers that have been sung by the Sephardic Syrian Jewish communities for centuries.
Every Shabbat during winter months my father woke me up a few hours after midnight to
walk to Ades Synagogue to participate in the singing until dawn. Later in my life I was able
to distinguish between different Maqamat. This attracted me to explore classical Arabic music
and heterophonic textures, and, just as has occurred in Baqashot, to compose works that
merge Maqamat with Jewish themes. Since I trained in Western classical music and practice
improvisation (as a pianist) it seemed appropriate to merge these different influences.
And so, The Crying Souls is an authentic expression of new music which incorporates a wide
spectrum of contemporary and ancient styles. It creates a confluence between the heterophonic
textures of Piyyutim and the compositional approaches of contemporary Western classical
music.
The work contains of eight major sections. These sections have been created with a range of
different approaches and the musical elements have been developed in diverse ways. It ranges
between up-tempi to slow, between Arabic melody and a Piyyut to a melancholic mood and
between slow harmonic progression to choral Baroque style.
I am a strong believer in the power of music to bring about understanding, change and reform
in societies, and perhaps also between nations. In this work it is my wish to convey the idea
of cultural pluralism.
Yitzhak Yedid