Created as musical miniatures in 2023 and 2024, five different individual movements are summarised as a collection under the title Geminids 23. What unites these small, independent movements is their reference to events in the year 2022/23. However, the instrumentation and occasion of each composition is different, and there is not necessarily a musical bracket – as in a symphony. Geminids are annual meteor showers whose radiant lies in the constellation Gemini. The original body of the Geminids is attributed to the asteroid Phaeton, which in turn orbited the sun as an ‘extinct’ comet. Similar to the Perseids – which are attributed to another comet – the Geminids are only visible to us as shooting stars.
What appears to us to be a lucky charm is at the same time the fading remnants of decay. The original comet or asteroid has therefore long since perished, and the shooting star also deceptively appears to us at a distance from Earth. This ambiguous character of the celestial phenomenon is the motif behind the naming of my collection. The occasion for each composition therefore has different connotations. ghasele was composed in 2023/24 for the birthday of the Berlin Oratorio Choir and premiered in 2024 in the choir’s anniversary year at the Konzerthaus Berlin. Two short movements were conceived for alto solo, choir and piano, which refer to the protests in Iran under the motto ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’. On 16 September 2022, Zhina Mahsa Amini died as a result of mistreatment by the Iranian regime in Tehran. Her death marked the beginning of numerous demonstrations in Iran, which were initially organised by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and started the fight for freedom and women’s rights with the political slogan in Kurdish: ‘Jin, Jiyan, Azadi’. The signal went around the world, even though the fight against the religious terror state has not yet come to a successful end. Many victims have been tortured and executed since the start of emancipation in Iran. And the killings will not stop!
As a composer, I would like to declare my solidarity, words fail me in the face of unbelievable terror, but I would like to join in singing the slogan: The first movement begins with ‘Jin, Jiyam, Azadi’ – the Kurdish version of the slogan. The music arises from wordlessness and ultimately takes sides with Mahsa Amini, to whom this movement is dedicated. The following ‘Zan, zendegi, azadi’ is the Persian version of the slogan and a rallying cry for all protesters, who take the screaming injustice as an opportunity to initiate the irreversible movement to stand up to the regime in Tehran. State and religion must act separately, everywhere in this world and in the particular, current case of the Islamic Republic.
The second sentence is dedicated to all victims of torture and executions in memory of those murdered in Iran. However, the number of dedicatees is increasing.
