Genesis of the project
The composition I used for my Bachelor concert is Pierrot et La Guerre (‘Pierrot and The War’), a musical suite for 6 vocalists and percussionists imbued with storytelling. The start of the creation process dates back to November 2023, and in the first version it was meant to be played without pause, like a rhapsody, and there was no storytelling element
The initial intention was to make a piece that talks about war, about how disastrous it is for civilians, and how horrible it is and will always be. It was partly about the war and genocide that was going on in Gaza, as we were already after October 7th 2023, but it was also about war in general, as I had the situation of Ukraine in mind as well, and I was thinking about other conflicts, some more visible than others. Hence, the music and its purpose were strongly influenced by this context from the start.
While I started composing without knowing precisely in which context I would perform that piece at first, at some point I decided that I would use it for my “pre-Bachelor” concert, a 30-minute concert that is performed at the end of the second year of the Bachelor studies at Sibelius Academy, in the Global Music programme.
What message I wanted to give was not clear to me from the start. I wanted to present the war not only as something binary, where one bad country attacks another, and the second one is just a victim. I wanted to show something more nuanced, and I wanted to bring the point of view of people, as human individuals, not that of the army, the politicians or the media. Eventually, I decided to take the point of view of a deserter, of someone who refused to be drafted in the army.
I heard a lot of stories from the First World War in France about drafted soldier who did not want anything to do with the war. Some of them were condemned for desertion or treason. I was also inspired by a famous anti-war song, Le Déserteur (The Deserter), from French poet and songwriter Boris Vian (2018). In essence, the song is a call for refusing to be drafted and refusing to participate in war.
The genocide was still going on in Gaza, but I did not think it would last long. After deciding that I would use this composition for my end of year concert, I genuinely thought the war would be over by that time, so it made sense to keep the topic of the composition more general. However, the situation in Gaza was getting worse day after day and week after week. Observing the lack of reaction or attention of people about it, as opposed to how the war in Ukraine was watched, listened, and talked about, a big frustration started to rise inside of me, which subsequently reshaped how I wanted to use the opportunity of my concert and turn it into a political act, a moment of reflection and public education, somehow.
The aim was to bring awareness on the absurd silence and avoiding strategies, and to enable the discussion on a topic that touches us particularly in the Global Music department, having Palestinian members in our community, both among the students and the staff. Besides, this department has by essence, with its name and its values, the topics of justice, human rights, equity, at its heart. Considering the people, however distant and different, as “Other”, and more serious even, indifference to the suffering of this “Other” is the exact opposite of our values. So, it seemed extremely important to me then, to bring that topic forward, to expose it loud and clear, to break the deafening silence and to, hopefully, open a conversation that was lacking.
I wanted also to propose another image of Palestinian civilians, who were being erased by the Israeli army, civilians who were being constantly dehumanized by Western mainstream media, which reflected in the apathy of most of the general public that I was noticing around me in Finland.
Also, from a wider point of view, I thought this topic, this intolerable genocide and the silence around it, should be everyone’s concern. War crimes and a possible crime against Humanity were (and still are, as I am writing this) being committed while we watched the news or our social media feeds. How could we stay silent? How could we not side with all the victims? How is it “complicated”, as we sometimes hear? How could our compassion and empathy only go towards one “side” of the conflict, moreover, the occupier’s side? How could we, Europeans, be so supportive of Ukrainians and at the same time so apathic to what the Palestinians were subjected to?
From the start I had been wondering if the music, with its few lyrics in French and Occitan, would be enough to carry the message. I believe music can carry and communicate strong emotions. But when it comes to a very specific and direct message, are not words, sometimes, more efficient? That is the reason why I decided to turn my pre-bachelor concert, which was to happen on 15th of May 2024, into a sort of political and educational moment.
Concretely, I prepared a “teach-in” where I would have a public discussion with Prof. Syksy Räsänen, an academic from Helsinki University and long-time activist advocating for the Palestinian cause through the Finnish-Palestinian organisation Sumud (Sumud - The Finnish Palestine Network, 2024). We would talk about the history, the current situation, the boycott movement (BDS Movement, 2025) and especially the academic and cultural side of it. Räsänen also invited a Palestinian artist in order to give a voice to the Palestinians themselves: they invited Nemat Battah1, who decided to talk about the Nakba (the “catastrophe”) since May 15th is Nakba Day (UNISPAL: About the Nakba, n.d.), a foundational date of Israel but the “catastrophe day” for Palestine, its occupation, and the start of Israel’s exactions against civilians.
So, the event also became an opportunity to learn about Palestinian history firsthand, the invited artist recounting the events of 1948 through her family archives (Karkar, 2024). At the end, the audience was also invited in the auditorium next door for the screening of “Palestine is Still the Issue”, a documentary film from John Pilger (Stark, 2002).
At that point, the silence inside academic institutions worldwide, and the silencing of people who dared to raise their voice against the genocide was at its peak, even in the University of the Arts in Helsinki. For that reason, I decided to keep my new plan secret and to make it a “happening”. Officially I was still preparing a concert, but there was no open conversation going on and it was hard to know who to trust, how my teachers would react, or how the technicians would react if I told them, so I did not tell anyone. Eventually, a week or two before the performance, I let the band -and only them- know what was going to happen, so that we could discuss it and decide how much and in which way they wanted to be involved in the “show”. As a result of this discussion, we agreed to perform only the first 2 minutes of my piece before I interrupt it and introduce the teach-in with a speech.
1 The irony is that Nemat Battah is also one of my teachers at the Global Music department, although she was invited by Prof. Syksy Räsänen who did not know that.
Second version of the project
Context of the performance
The new version of my piece was performed at the Festival of Resistance(s) (Karkar & Reba, 2025), that Mia Reba and I organised together on the 27th of May 2025, a context which also shaped the composition and creation process during the first semester of 2025.
This festival idea emerged around the end of 2024 as a follow-up to the previous happening, from the will to bring my Bachelor performance outside of Musiikkitalo (the Music Center of Helsinki, where the Sibelius Academy is located and where Bachelor concerts are usually performed), and to touch a wider audience, people who might not necessarily enter conventional venues and institutions like Sibelius Academy.
The concept matured, and I wanted to “zoom out” of the case of Palestine, to look at occupation as a more general and systemic problem. I also wanted to propose more than just a concert. So, the idea of a festival was born, which was themed on “resistance to occupation”. In this frame, the Palestine issue resonated with Kurdistan, Ukraine, Karelia, Western Sahara, Tibet and many other places in the world. It also resonated with the struggle of indigenous peoples, everywhere in the world, including in Finland with the Sámi people.
In January 2025 I started contacting a couple of organisations who seemed to like the idea, so the festival started to sound like it could become reality. The idea was to build a platform to bring together and amplify the voices of those who struggle against or denounce occupations of various sorts - a consequence of colonialism, imperialism, and racism. There would be artistic performances of different kinds, stands from partner organisations, as well as panel discussions around the theme of resistance to occupation.
In January and February, I applied to various funding, and from February to May 2025, our organising committee consisting of only two people managed to gather different actors around this cause and to make it happen.
Eventually the festival brought together various Civil Society Organisations: transversal like Amnesty International – Finland, Elokapina, Catalysti, or more locally oriented such as A.I. Sápmi chapter, Sumud – The Finnish-Palestine Network, Student for Palestine Finland, the National Kurdish Democratic Center. It also brought artists whose background, practice and works reflected the theme and values of the festival (music, dance, theatre-inspired participative practice, and visual arts).
The goal was to raise awareness of the general public on the main theme, as well as to be a forum for artists and actors of different organisations to meet and discuss around their common issues, to learn from each other's experiences, and to discuss and discover what remains common to all of them, while recognising the specificity of each struggle in their own local context.
The will to bring not only my voice, but also others’, on a public square, out to the masses who might be simply passing by, through this festival, had an influence on my processes of composing, arranging, writing, and on the reflections that nourished my work all along the way.
A new element: storytelling
In October 2024, I decided to work again on my composition, to rearrange and extend it for my Bachelor concert. This time, I thought, we would perform the piece. But then the message had to be very clear.
I still had the feeling that words, in a more widely understood language like English, would be beneficial. First, I thought of including other arts, visual art, theatre maybe. I even passed on a message to fellow students at the Theatre Academy, as well as at the Fine Arts Academy, but with no result. And then I thought of stories. The stories I heard or read as a kid, but also the ones I heard as an adult. I think storytelling has a power to fascinate, to transport, and to get people to follow you into your world. So that they see, as best they can, the part of the picture you would like to show them. Then, I thought that I could mix storytelling and music. This way, I could tell the story to my audience with both words and music, and the audience could then understand my language, both textual and musical.
I remember struggling with this idea at first: it is debatable, and some people would argue that less is more, and that sometimes not being too explicit in an artistic performance actually invites the audience for more reflection. But I felt it important to address not only my fellow musicians from the Global Music community, trained artists, but a wider audience who maybe do not analyse and decode as deeply the music they listen to. Hence, I decided that adding words, in the form of storytelling, would be beneficial.
I had a story in mind already since 2024, if not earlier, but putting it into text only came around April 2025, and the text was subsequently reworked with Kata Vuoristo, who also took the role of the storyteller.
About the (new) message
At first, the core message of the piece is pacifist, similar to what it was in the first version. It could consist of the alternate title: Maudita Sia la Guèrra (Damned Be the War), which are the lyrics of one part of the work. But after reflection, there is a bit more to it than that. But while extending the project and the story after the first, unperformed version, the message evolved a bit, although its seeds were already present in the earlier version in 2024.
What I wanted to communicate with this whole story and musical suite, is how the conditions under which certain peoples, like the Palestinians (but not only), are treated, ruled on, discriminated and oppressed, is only a fertile ground for more violence, feeding back into a reaction loop with the oppressor. My intention was to advocate for peace, but also to underline that there can be no lasting peace without justice.
Claiming for “peace”, in a situation of occupation, from the occupier to the occupied, is ignoring (or even worse, denying, erasing) the actual situation of oppression and asking the oppressed one to accept it. It is asking the oppressed to be silent and to accept their position as dominated, as “less than”, as not deserving as much human rights as others. It is inherently racist and colonialist.
In 2024 already, in resonance with this idea, I was thinking of including a rearranged version of Bob Marley’s song War (Barrett & Cole, 1976), whose lyrics are almost word for word an excerpt of the 1963 speech of Haile Selassie the Ist, Emperor of Ethiopia and head of the Organisation for African Unity, in front of the UN General Assembly (Selassie, 1963). This speech calls out discriminations, racism and colonialism, and calls for the application of the same human rights for all humans, whatever their skin or eye color. While this speech was focusing on Africa, it resonates today with many places and peoples in the world who still do not enjoy the same rights as the citizens of “W.E.I.R.D.” countries (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic)2.
Back then, I chose not to include this song, for aesthetic reasons, to avoid bringing in another totally different style into the project, as well as for its length. However, it undeniably influences and resonates strongly with the message I want to channel through my musical story.
2 A term coined by researcher Joseph Heinrich and his colleagues. They found that the usual population samples used for psychological experiments are the “worst” sample to extrapolate on other populations. I use it here as it seems adequate and accurate to describe the type of population who enjoys the most human rights, such as peace, freedom, justice, etc...
Henrich J., Heine S. J., Norenzayan A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 33, 61–83.