Mov. I livestreamed May 27th, 2021 as part of the Beth Morrison Projects: Next Gen Competition

Performed by Contemporaneous, with Amal El-Shrafi, soprano conducted by Kamna Gupta

Translation:

I. I draw a picture of her in the dust and cry, my heart in torment.

I complain to her about her: for she left me, love-sick, badly stricken.

I complain of all the passion I have suffered, with a plaint towards the dust.

Love makes me want to turn to Layla’s land, complaining of my passion and the flames in me.

I make rain fall upon the dust from my eyes’ clouds; my heart is in distress and grief.

I complain of my great passion while my tears are flowing, streaming.

I’m talking to her picture in the dust: as if the dust were listening to me,

As if I were near her, complaining to her of my plight, while talking to the dust.

No one returns an answer to my words, not even the reproacher answers me.

So I turn back, hope dashed, tears flowing down as if from showering clouds,

Truly, madly possessed by her, my heart in torment for the love of her.

Majnun Layla

Translated by Geert Jan van Gelder

This song set is focused on figures known as mukhannathun (singular: mukhannath): these were gay, queer, and gender nonconforming men and trans women in the early Islamic period who are absent from the Qu’ran and the Hadiths, but appear sporadically in other literature. Many of them were talented singers who were the first great performers and teachers of Classical Arab singing, as well as the first male singers in Islam. There are three main eras in which we have documentation of their activities, particularly as performers: around 700CE, the 9th Century, and the 19th Century. These individuals have had a complicated history, wrought with periods of tense acceptance and brutal persecution. Currently, they are virtually nonexistent in the nations around the Muslim holy land (Hijaz). Given the rise in Islamophobia, homophobia, and transphobia the world over, I felt strongly that this concept would lead to transformative, topical music. It is my sincere hope that this work succeeds at that.

Each movement is a tribute to a different mukhannath. My choices in texts were also historically informed: each text is chosen from the three eras in which the mukhannaths were known to be active. I chose to set the first two texts partly in English and partly in Arabic—both to make the texts accessible to both Western and Arab listeners, as well as give a nod to the bilingual pop music of our time. The first movement is dedicated to Ṭuways (“Little Peacock”). He was the first male singer in all of Islam and helped popularize the mukhannaths’ trademark musical stylings. He was known for his quick wit, his habit of wearing henna, as well as being notoriously unlucky. When I found the Majnun Layla poem, I thought it encapsulated perfectly the feelings of someone extraordinarily, fantastically unlucky in love. Perhaps Ṭuways himself would have sung such a text.