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about

AJ SARAJEVO
Nihâvend yürük semâî / Bojerka

In the summer of 2010, me and my wife Martine stayed in Sarajevo for a couple of days on our way to Greece, together with our children Tom and Veerle. That war-torn beauty of a city, which we entered through the infamous sniper alley known from chaotic 1990s news footage, cannot be but thought-provoking. On the first evening we were having tea in a secluded square that could well have been located somewhere in the Old City of İstanbul. The children, who were ten and eight years of age at that time, respectively, were playing about while my wife and I were talking. The atmosphere was peaceful; everybody was having a good time. At some point Veerle came and asked for my camera. After a couple of minutes she returned it and ran off again. Martine and I were curious, checked the camera and saw that Veerle had made a single photograph of a particularly bullet-ridden blind wall. When we left for our hotel she showed us the place, just around the corner, which made for a rather grim contrast with the cosy square.

The children had occasionally been asking questions about the ubiquitous war damage in Bosnia-Herzegovina; I remember Tom muttering “they must have been very angry” when we drove by a bus shelter resembling a rusty colander. We gave them watered-down accounts of what happened during the Bosnian war, but the damage speaks for itself and the photo and the odd remark told us what an impression it was making on them. Ugly traces of a nasty war, just two days drive from their home, where they had always been taking safety for granted. The world had become uncomfortably small.

Another touching memory I have of our stay in Sarajevo is of the children singing along with the imam of a nearby mosque while playing in our hotel apartment, rather early in the morning. “Are you enjoying the music?”, I asked them. “The man sings well”, Tom solemnly declared. This was the first of several adhans we would be hearing on our way south, and Tom would compare each imam with the one in Sarajevo, the first he ever heard.

In that city, under those circumstances, I wrote ‘Aj Sarajevo’. I think of this piece as a chameleon: it can be Western, Eastern, or both at the same time. I have played it with a modal ensemble, which works well, but I decided to record it with accordion, double bass and drums. When accordionist Jan Wollring and percussionist Jacobus Thiele asked me what I was looking for, I sent them a song by Šaban Bajramović and Mostar Sevdah Reunion and asked them to think of a piece like that, played in a quiet club, very late in the evening just before closing time, for the last members of a small audience, drinking and smoking in silent contemplation. I think they delivered. When we were mixing the piece I told sound engineer Vangelis Apostolou that I wanted the rhythm section to whisper. I think he delivered too.

This piece brings this album to a conclusion. Erato began and ended in the same mode, or mood if you like. Nihâvend is quintessentially Eastern, but it is at the same time perhaps the most accessible makam to Western ears. I am leaving you in the middle.

credits

from Erato, released November 2, 2022
Composition: Michiel van der Meulen | Makam: Nihâvend | Usul: yürük semâî / bojerka (6/8, 3-3) | Musicians: Jan Wollring (accordion), Michiel van der Meulen (double bass), Jacobus Thiele (drums)

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Kairos Collective Utrecht, Netherlands

Kairos Collective is the occasional ensemble that Michiel van der Meulen assembles to record or perform his contemporary modal music. Kairos is the personification of the right moment, the time to act or an opportunity to be seized, perfectly encapsulating the spirit and atmosphere of the collective's sessions. ... more

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