Work
Ethnic Conflict for String Ensemble
for thirteen string players
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About
This work begins with two authentic folk melodies from two (European) ethnic groups that, most recently in 2008, were engaged in armed violence. The similarity of the melodies, and the fact that layman cannot tell the two melodies apart, highlights the fact that ethnic hatred requires group-internal discourses to be nourished and exacerbated.
Violence between two or more groups of people that see each other as ‘the others’, continues to shape the lives of millions of people globally. Composer Samuel Gray has first-hand experience of ethnic violence as an independent volunteer in Kosovo. While Gray realises that is impossible to represent the suffering and terror of war and its emotional and societal aftermath in music and does not wish to belittle such experiences through this work, he believes that in order for contemporary classical music to continue play a role in modern society, it needs to not ignore the problems that modern society has to deal with.
Dedication note
To all the victims of ethnic conflict globally
Performance history
03 Sep 2010: Recorded by Agnese Kanniņa-Liepiņa, Madara Pētersone, Madara Jauģiete, Līga Pētersone, Konstantīns Paturskis, Kristiāna Šīrante, Madara Gaile, Anna Naudžūne, Liene Kļava, Artūrs Gailis, Kārlis Klotiņš and Pēteris Ozoliņš with conductor Ainārs Rubiķis in Riga, Latvia