Seare Ahmad Farhat

muzzahaimat

for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano

This work was a winner in the 30x30x30 Project Competition undertaken by SOLI Chamber Ensemble in 2024.

Muzzahaimat falls into a set of recent projects surrounding my investigation, deconstruction, and reclamation of my cultural background. Muzzahaimat, and its partner term in dari, Ikhtalal (annoyance), are to some extent untranslatable, or perhaps resist translation to English. The word muzzahaimat could mean disturbance, or obtrusion. Yet it does not point to a specific instance of disturbance — rather the total concept of being disturbed, having a belated reaction to distress, a fright not prepared by anxiety. Muzzahaimat is the cascading repetition of an event. This musical work, for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano explores and works to understand this obscured emotional and experiential state. The piece revolves around belated development, inverted responses, and shocking events only later contextualized resulting in a form that resists a linear reading. In a true chamber music sentiment, the instruments are at once a unified musical gesture, yet in the same moment fracturing infinitely. The quartet are simultaneously basking in a lush padded environment, yet lonely, and sending signals into the dark only never to be fully realized in satisfying response.

Muzzahaimat was commissioned by Copland House for its CULTIVATE 2023 emerging composers’ institute. It received its World Premiere performances by the Music from Copland House ensemble on June 11, 2023 at the Hoff-Barthelson Music School in Scarsdale, NY and June 12, 2023 at Elebash Hall at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York.