Mind you, since the family were Kurds, most assuredly, they were oppressed within the boundaries of ‘Syria’, or as once we knew what that name meant. If only they could get across the border into neighboring Turkey, perhaps, just perhaps, they might be able to endure whatever containment zone or refugee camp in which they might be placed, but, sooner or later, they also just might be able to find work and, maybe, a new life elsewhere. When their string of luck had completely run out, or, when they thought it was about to do, this parent or these parents took flight. However humble ‘ home’ might have been in the Syria from which the whole family had fled, nonetheless, it was the place where his Mummy and Daddy and others who knew and loved him and took the very best care of him that their circumstances could possibly manage. When I saw this photograph, most genuinely my soul sank.Īll the juices and instincts of being a father surged to the fore.Īs a Dad, one recognized that what one saw was a truly beautiful, lonely cherub, fallen from Heaven, lying there, totally alone, in as close to a fetal position as one can imagine, yet stone cold dead on a lonely beach… for however many hours or days or weeks distant from what once he knew as ‘ home‘.
No longer could one treat horror as just another story in the news. When photographs of Hitlerian Nazi Germany’s most inhumane of excesses, the concentration camps, surfaced and were seen by millions all around the world, finally, the horror percolated through the souls of those fortunate enough not to be sharing those outrages on a daily basis.įinally, one had to face the most diabolical of horrors any man could conjure, or at least to that day and time.įor those least willing, even then, to accept the worst, it was when photos or newsreels of piles of the emaciated bodies of children were published that all mental resistance was overcome. Listen to samples on iTunes here.We all know that, sometimes, it is a single picture or photograph which, finally, brings all the uncertainties into sharpest focus or removes whatever doubts one may have ever entertained about some place or person or event. Read more about the Phoenix Chorale’s new CD: Northern Lights: Choral Works by Ola Gjeilo. Read more about northern lights in Norway – and see more images – on National Geographic or. Northern Norway is one of the areas where aurora borealis is easiest to spot, thanks to the warming effects of the Gulf Stream, which makes the area habitable. At you can find incredible pictures of the aurora borealis phenomenon, pictures that also greatly inspired this piece.” Looking out from the attic window that Christmas in Oslo, over a wintery lake under the stars, I was thinking about how this ‘terrible’ beauty is so profoundly reflected in the northern lights, or aurora borealis, which, having grown up in the southern part of the country, I have only seen once or twice in my life. It is one of the most beautiful natural phenomena I’ve ever witnessed, and has such a powerful, electric quality that must have been both mesmerizing and terrifying to people in the past, when no one knew what it was and when much superstition was attached to these experiences. About a ‘terrible’, powerful beauty, although the music is quite serene on the surface: Most of all, this piece and its text is about beauty. is my home now, so I guess my work has been increasingly reflecting my love for American music, writing and scenery. “ Northern Lights is my most Norwegian production in years composed in an attic outside of Oslo at Christmas time in 2007, it’s one of the few works I have written in Norway since I moved to New York in 2001. So, here are Ola’s own words recounting his experience witnessing the northern lights and how this inspiring event moved him to write the piece of the same name: I thought, wow, how serendipitous that the Phoenix Chorale has released our newest recording (featuring Ola’s music and titled Northern Lights) at the same time these amazing images are coming from Norway. He also talked about the piece he’d written of the same name, “Northern Lights.” I know this because I was having lunch with Ola Gjeilo recently and he mentioned the northern lights were happening. The northern lights are happening right now in Norway and are reported to be the most intense display of this fantastic phenomenon the country has seen in decades.