Mosaic for Orchestra by Bushra El-Turk by Bushra El-Turk

We are a mosaic of identities, in life and in death. Creed, class, race and politics are part of identity. Taking inspiration from The Song of the Earth, Mosaic expresses the same sense of 'otherness' and 'rootless-ness' which Mahler found in ancient Chinese poetry. My piece explores fragmented identities through bursts of quasi-Byzantine chant which gradually become more prominent. In Mosaic I reflect on how borders can be blurred, yet still differences can be immense. To quote Milan Kundera: “It takes so infinitely little for someone to find himself on the other side of the border, where everything - love, convictions, faith, history - no longer has meaning. The whole mystery of human life resides in the fact that it is spent in immediate proximity with that border, and even in direct contact with that border, that it is separated from it, not only by kilometres but by barely a millimetre.”

This piece has been performed by orchestras notably the Manchester Camerata (2010) and the BBC Symphony Orchestra (2011).