Fatima Lahham - Bulbul (2022)

This album re-imagines the voice of the nightingale through my instrument, the recorder. The bulbul is a migrating bird, suspended between skies: never home, always on her way there. The bird who sings to the rose in Rumi's poetry, the bird who suffers injustice and is given a new tongue with which to sing of it in Ovid's lines. In these tracks, I take inspiration from the stories of the nightingale to sing new songs about the skies, about the freedom of flying and singing, about the spaces between homes. I combine medieval and baroque music with songs by Fairouz, the piping of a bee, the voice of Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, and my own improvisations. The pieces that have resulted on this album are an invitation to imagine new worlds with your ears.