CANDID: It is often hard to see what is influencing you when you are right up close to it, says Joanna Marsh. Right: HIP: King’s Singers.     Photo by Chris O’Donovan


By Anand Holla

Having lived in Dubai for nearly eight years, British composer Joanna Marsh was all stoked up about her distinctly Gulf-imprinted work Arabesques — three settings of poems about women by contemporary Arab male authors — flying first to the West, landing a premiere at the London A Cappella Festival 2015.
Double Grammy award-winning popular British vocal ensemble The King’s Singers were all set to perform Marsh’s work on January 29. But unfortunately, one of the group’s singers took ill and the piece could be performed only partially.
As fate would have it, Marsh’s musical repurposing of the deeply reflective Arabic poetry relayed in the voice of The King’s Singers, would fetch its big debut in Dubai’s brother city, Doha — the world premiere of Arabesques will happen here in Doha, today, at 7pm.
A graduate of London’s Royal Academy of Music, and a former Cambridge organ scholar, Marsh, in her time in Dubai, has clearly done an exceedingly good job at opening up to the Arab culture, music, and literature. As she earnestly puts it, “Living in the Middle East for seven years has been an invitation to explore the work of artists and writers that I may not otherwise have come across.”
Usually, Joanna’s compositions glean inspiration from seeing contemporary subjects in a historical perspective. Be it The Tower (2008) for the BBC singers, (John Armitage Trust) that was a reflection on the Burj Khalifa, Dubai’s famously tall tower, and its curious parallels with the mythical Tower of Babel, or her other piece on the Burj, Kahayla, written two years later, which uses allegory to look at Dubai’s desire to ‘win’, juxtaposing building the world’s tallest tower with winning a horse race.
The 40-something composer moved to the United Arab Emirates when her husband, businessman and organ recitalist Paul Griffiths, became chief executive of Dubai Airports. Instead of shutting herself out in a new arena, Marsh marched forward in discovering new avenues of musicality.
This also means that she is as much at ease creating a musical installation for a travelator at Gatwick airport, as she is about composing a brass fanfare titled The Falcon and the Lion for the Queen’s 2010 visit to Abu Dhabi.
Apart from her concert music, Marsh has penned the music for the short film The Morse Collectors which has won prizes at seven international film festivals, and her songs for children’s choirs based on the poetry of Brian Patten, have been performed at festivals and choral competitions internationally and across the UK including Choir of the Year.
That isn’t all. Marsh is also founder and co-director of ChoirFest Middle East, which last year, put on the region’s largest choral extravaganza, ChoirFest Middle East 2014, by roping in 35 regional choirs to Dubai.
Hours before her piece’s grand premiere, Marsh spoke to Community from Dubai about the process of her creative pursuits.
 
How natural or conscious a process was it for you to incorporate Arabic themes, poetry and ideas into your compositions?
As my home is now the UAE, it feels very natural to look to my surroundings for inspiration for the music I am writing. The incorporation of these ideas is largely conscious, as the creation of any art is a conscious process. However, it is certainly possible that there are influences on my music that are currently beyond my sight. It is often hard to see what is influencing you when you are right up close to it.
 
You seem to have imbibed Arabic literature and music a great deal. Does it now feel part of you as an artiste and a creator, as opposed to trying to grapple with something that may be mostly culturally alien?
I wouldn’t say it is a part of me. I would simply say when creating music, I find it necessary to be completely fascinated by the subject that I wish to use as a theme for a piece. Since I have been living in the region, I have dug around and uncovered many such themes and in so doing I have been struck by the sense of familiarity rather than distance between our cultures. Delving into the literature and music of a people brings you right up against their humanity and emphasises the closeness of us all.
 
How has Dubai — its architecture, ambience, energy or cosmopolitanism — shaped your musical perspective?
Dubai has made me realise that there is a lot to be said for having a “can-do” attitude to life. Optimism is highly contagious when you are completely surrounded by it. There is also no doubt that living in a country of diverse cultures has opened my mind to ways of thinking that I might otherwise not have contemplated and it has probably brought out a more proactive side to my work as well since there has not been a track record of composers seeking to establish a career in the Gulf. I can certainly point a finger at one piece that was devised directly as a result of being in Dubai. My composition Kahayla, (after the Dubai horse race Kahayla Classic) was envisaged as both an orchestral work and also a drawing of the Burj Khalifa as I wanted to create a piece that was “visible” to the audience as be alternative to simply the aural experience of the music. I certainly wouldn’t have written this piece anywhere else.
 
How did Arabesques come together in your head? Also, why did you choose those three poems?
The texts I have chosen for Arabesques are three short but highly evocative poems by contemporary male Arab poets; two Iraqis and one Palestinian. Each tells the story of a woman they have known: A Woman by Sa’adi Youssef, remembers a passionate encounter, Fading by Abboud al-Jabiri observes her aging, Seeds in Flight by Khaled Abdallah finds rebirth after her death.
 
What is that one special element that The King’s Singers bring out in your music, when performing it?
I have always been intrigued by The King’s Singers’ ability to effect a single instrument and to disappear as a group of individual characters. Their unanimity is the perfect vehicle for these intimate and reflective texts, which require the sense of an individual male voice.
 
As an artiste, what is the biggest high for you — hitting upon fresh musical ideas, composing a piece, or to watch it being performed?
It’s the creation and crafting of ideas that I find most exciting about what I do. Listening to a first performance is usually marred by nerves even with highly respected performers. The best times are when good idea for a piece coincides with a good idea about how to express it musically. Then you hit gold and the piece almost writes itself.
As for a less serious answer… biggest high? That’s got to be getting upgraded to First on Emirates. Nothing else comes close.
 
For venue and ticket details of today’s premiere of Joanna Marsh’s Arabesques by The King’s Singers, contact the box office on 44591501. As for those seeking more of The King’s Singers, catch their gig with the ASD Chamber Singers at 6.30 pm, tomorrow.