Dear friend,
I write today from Turkey, where I am with Ameen Mokdad finishing up a musical preservation project and album called Ji bo sê kes çay (Tea For Three). The album features our friend and colleague Mücahit Poyraz singing traditional Kurdish songs and playing local instruments such as bağlama, Kurdish sitar, and santur. This album will be released, along with complete translations and research on each song, on September 1, 2022 via the Arkadash Records label. It is part of Cuatro Puntos' work to support and preserve Kurdish musical traditions.
We look forward to sharing music from the album later this year. As we worked on editing and mastering the album this week, we were inspired to improvise our own arrangement of two Kurdish songs. This week's video features Ameen Mokdad on violin and myself (Kevin Bishop) on viola. We are playing two Kurdish melodies: Malan Barker and Narine. Malan Barker means "they moved... to foreign lands". Narine is the name of a woman praised for her beauty.
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Wishing you all the best from Turkey,
Kevin Bishop
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