The Justice of this Nation

A two minute trailer

(full video at page bottom)

"the powerful become cynical,
the ordinary become cruel,
the innocent become guilty"

"When working on the program Shifting Images the urge arose to dedicate a work to more explicit human questions, a work that would have a relevance outside the usual concert situation. As I wanted to express ideas about changing ethical positions in times of conflict, I chose not to use contemporary music, but distorted folk music, and not to use just my own pictures (only the pictures made in a Palestine refugee camp and in Syria are mine), but mostly existing journalistic material.

Starting point in my approach, and a reason to choose the Middle-East as an example, is a picture of a mass execution by Isis in 2015 that took place on the exact spot where I played clarinet, and was photographed, some years earlier in the Palmyra amphitheatre - see below.

The result is a twenty minute performance for clarinet and video that can be performed as part of Shifting Images, but preferably at more open and dedicated occasions".

Acknowledgements:

Photos Ukrain/Hungary
historic film stills, footage 1937
Photos Israël
historic news film stills, footage 1948, 1980
Laura Karisch
Photos Iraq
News video stills 2003-
AP, Michael Kamber
Photos Armenia
Anonymous photographer
Photos Gaza
Historic news video stills 1989/2001/2011
Mahmud Hams
Photos Palmyra, Syria
Marang, Isis, unknown photographer

Photos Backa camp, Jordan
Marang, Unwra
Texts
George W. Bush, Madeleine Albright,
Tayyip Erdogan, Adolf Hitler
Benjamin Netanyahu, Jan Peter Balkenende, Jaap De Hoop-Scheffer
Armenian songs
Soghomon Soghomonyan
Jewish songs
Marang, traditional
Arabic music
Salatin Al Tarab Orchestra
Concept, tape, clarinet
Michel Marang

Full video: The Justice of this Nation