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On Jan. 8, 2020, the while the plane was leaving Iranian airspace.

In total, including . The reverberations of this tragedy were felt across Canada and around the world.

A new composition, Flight 752 Elegies, memorializes the victims. This was first broadcast online in December at the the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts (IBCPA). The centre is located in Kingston, Ont.

Santur with piano

At the time of the Flight PS752 plane crash, I was finishing up work on a composition for string quartet . This of ancient Iranian origin is akin to .

The santur player for this project, , is a virtuoso performer and improvisor who was born in Iran and later immigrated to Canada. As we both reside in Kingston, it has been inspirational to hear Sadaf capture beautifully expressive melodies and complicated rhythmic textures on her instrument.

During fall 2019, we began meeting for improvising sessions where I would play the piano and Sadaf would try some of my suggested musical ideas on the santur. The initial goal was to create a composition for santur and string quartet, a project we hoped to realize in the future.

In January 2020, after the tragic news of the crash, we agreed to collaborate on a work for choir and santur in remembrance of the flight’s victims. While I composed all the music for this project, I also provided a few opportunities for passages of improvisation on the santur.

Compositional structure and symbolism

The use of music to create a memorial tribute has a long tradition across cultures . Through my I have studied a range of western classical and contemporary .

Some memorial composition titles seek to speak directly to the audience

Out of Christian classical traditions come compositions .

There are also “” (from ), such as Polish composer .

is a poem, usually a lament for the dead — but also, there are many purely instrumental compositions from classical and contemporary eras .

In titling the composition of Flight 752 Elegies, I used the plural form of “elegy” to both imply that each movement would have a different sense of lamentation, but equally to suggest that multiple elegies are required as many individuals were killed. I decided early on that the work would be in seven movements, with a duration of approximately 30 minutes.

Composing and presenting ‘Flight Elegies 752’

, music director and conductor of the , quickly agreed to have the choir contribute to a project and proposed a premiere date in early 2021. However, these plans were put on hold due to COVID-19.

While many live, in-person events and concerts have been cancelled or postponed over the past few years, in Kingston, the resourcefulness and creativity of the IBCPA and its Imagine Project has been tremendously helpful for artists. This project provided musicians with the opportunity to use the IBCPA Concert Hall for creation-based residencies, online arts education and film/recording projects.

Sadaf obtained funding through this project to record a video premiere performance of Flight Elegies 752 at the IBCPA in March 2021. She was joined by , and the Kingston Chamber Choir, and I played the percussion parts.

Consoling, symbolizing loss

The unifying element of this composition is that the choir sings the same wordless music for movements 1, 3, 5 and 7 which or refrain. Each of these refrains ends with a slightly different final cadence and is sung at a slower tempo with each repetition.

In these “refrain” movements, the santur plays independently of the choir, beginning in the first movement with rhythmic groups of seven notes, then five notes, then two.

For Movement 3, the santur is reduced to five- and two-note groups. Movement 5 reduces the santur part to just two-note groups, spaced far apart. In Movement 7, the santur does not play at all.

The arc of hearing the same refrain sung by the choir with diminishing contributions from the santur, can be seen in the choir’s faces and the santur player’s movement, and heard in the music, as a real-time symbol of loss.

In the same way someone grieving , the santur’s disregard for the tempo taken by the choir in these refrains mirrors this sense of timelessness. The constant slowing down of the tempo for each subsequent statement of the refrain stretches the sustaining of notes to a level that is almost impossible to sustain. To my own ears, it voices despair.

Verse by Rumi

The even-numbered movements have more active santur and choir parts, sung to poetry referencing the day of one’s death and the soul’s longing by the 13th-century Islamic . Multiple sources of public domain English translations were used in compiling these texts.

Sadaf had long admired and studied the poetry of Rumi in the Farsi language. She indicated it seemed fitting to include the poet’s verses in the composition, especially given how Rumi is well-known in Iran, in Sadaf’s words, for his “passion to merge and unite with the original love between him and his creator.”

Rumi translator Ibrahim Gamard notes that Rumi “.” In a 2010 interview, he also said it’s possible the poet is more popular in the West than in Muslim countries.

Omid Safi, a scholar of Middle Eastern and Islamic studies, notes that dating back to the Victorian period, westerners began to separate Rumi’s mystical poetry from its Islamic roots with assumptions the poet was “.” He has explored Rumi as his book .

In the composition, to give the Rumi movements a more distinctive focus from the refrains, I added simple percussion parts.

Expression of public grief

Most of us cannot know the . However, in taking a moment to listen to and reflect upon Flight 752 Elegies, it is possible to collectively, and with compassion, convey our sorrow.

There is more that could be written about this work, as well the process and efforts to create this video. But best to simply express a hope that the opportunity to observe this performance provides a focused moment of reflection and shared condolences.

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, Professor of Composition and Theory, .

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