Sunken Cities
Saied Sikbak & Alice Barron
Oud & violin

'Sunken Cities' was commissioned for the Sunken Cities exhibition at the British Museum, 2016, where it was performed in Room 34.

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Alice and Saied explore the string-based sound world of the Palestinian oud and the violin, enriched by Saied’s roots in Arabic music and Alice’s experiences in South India and London. Saied and Alice first worked together with iyatraQuartet, creating original music drawing on many cultural and stylistic influences.

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The mode for this piece was derived from the pitches when we bow the pegs of our instruments. We worked together to compose the melodic material, from which we improvise.

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We recorded 'Sunken Cities' live in Somerville Chapel, Oxford, with sound engineer Tim Hand.

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