WayWORD Festival 2024

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A night of poetry and music with local, national and international artists. WayWORD at the Lampie features North-East poetic talent, Sheena Blackhall & Noon Salah Eldin, combined with Iranian musicians, Amin Hashemi, Amir Tahqiq, Yahya Salehi and Madeh Mohammadi, new spoken word work with Jacob Sam-La Rose, violist Fiona Winning and music by Gyorgy Kurtag and Luke Styles. Finally, Syrian musicians Shamband return by popular demand to round off the night.  This event is brought to you in partnership with SOUND Festival. Exploring the ways in which poetry and music can speak to each other to create something new, poet Jacob Sam-la Rose presents his own work alongside new music by Gyorgy Kurtag and Luke Styles with violist Fiona Winning.   Jacob Sam-La Rose is one of the country’s most inspirational poets, an activist and educator who has performed at festivals, led workshops and encouraged writers of all ages from Botswana to Malaysia. His first pamphlet, Communion (2006), was described by Poetry Book Society judges as ‘fresh, vivid and masterly in its evocation of contemporary Britain.’ Sam-La Rose’s poems have appeared in Identity Parade – New British & Irish Poets; Penguin’s Poems For Love; I Have Found A Song; Learn Then Burn: The Ultimate Poetry Guide for the High School or College Classroom; and Michael Rosen’s A-Z: The Best Children’s Poetry from Agard to Zephaniah, among many other anthologies and journals. His second collection, Breaking Silence, was published by Bloodaxe in 2011.  Scottish violist Fiona Winning studied at the Juilliard School in New York, where she lived and worked for 6 years, was Principal Viola of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, followed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra until 2014. She was a frequent guest principal of the Philharmonia and London Philharmonic Orchestras, including four seasons at Glyndebourne Opera with the LPO, and guest principal viola of the Aurora Orchestra and Scottish Chamber Orchestra. A passionate advocate of contemporary music she was a founding member of Ensemble Amorpha and has been a regular guest principal of the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and Red Note Ensemble (Scotland). A member of the Edinburgh String Quartet from 2014-2016, Fiona often appears at the South Bank Centre as guest principal with the London Sinfonietta, performing with them at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, BBC Proms, and broadcast live on BBC Radio 3.  Sheena Blackhall is a writer, illustrator, traditional ballad singer and storyteller in North East Scotland. From 1998-2003 she was Creative Writing Fellow in Scots at the Elphinstone Institute. She has published four Scots novellas, fifteen short story collections and over 200 poetry collections. In 2009 she became Makar (poet laureate) for Aberdeen and the North East, and Makar for the Doric Board in 2019. Alongside Linda Smith, she co-translated Wuthering Heights into Doric, published in May 2024. Amin Hashemi is a scholar in cultural history of Iranian music. He studied and worked in academic positions in Iran, England and Scotland. In his PhD at SOAS, University of London, Amin explored the complexities of cultural antagonism in Iranian popular music with a focus on the context and practice of censorship and in his current fellowship in Aberdeen he is looking into the relationships between creative music practice of Iranian musicians and their cultural integration into the UK. Amin is also an accomplished player of Iranian stringed instrument, the Tar.  Madeh Mohammadi is a singer born in 1990 in the country of Darian as part of the Paveh in Kermanshah in Iran. He has been a refugee to the UK for a year and living in Aberdeen. As part of the Houraman ensemble in Kurdistan, Madeh performed as a vocalist in many festivals throughout Iran.  Singer Yahya Salehi was born in 1987 in the Town of Rijab in Dalahou, part of Kermanshah province in Iran. He is a vocalist of Kurdish folklore and classical Iranian music, spent four years with Kurdistan ensemble and another two years with Houraman ensemble in Kurdistan, Iran. He has been living in Aberdeen for 8 months now as a refugee to the United Kingdom.   Born in 1985 in Shiraz, Iran, Amir Tahqiq began learning the daf in 2006 under the tutelage of Mostafa Sohani and Sina Shahryari, and later took advanced rhythm courses with Navid Afqah. Since 2009, he has taught at music schools in Shiraz, and became the director of the cultural and artistic centre in Khon in 2013. In 2020, he founded his own music school, Mahbang, with official approval from the Ministry of Culture. Leading the Darak percussion group and winning top prizes at the Fars Music Festival, Tehran, Amir has performed many concerts throughout Iran, including with the Deyar group, and organised concerts for other well-known groups and musicians, such as Kamkars, Homay, Bamdad Shiraz Amir, and Majid Derakhshani in Khonj. He has been living in Aberdeen since arriving as a refugee to the UK.  Noon Salah Eldin is a poet and spoken word artist based in Aberdeen, Scotland. Born and raised in Sudan, she moved to the UK in 2015 to pursue postgraduate medical training in child health. Writing and performing poetry has become an increasingly important part of her life. It has empowered her to process and discuss experiences of childhood traumas, political upheaval, migration and motherhood. She believes that art can be a powerful tool for personal and social transformation.  Formed in 2023 for their appearance at WayWORD, Syrian trio Shamband are back by popular demand, performing Syrian and Iraqi songs. ‘Sham’ is the Syrian slang name for Damascus and the band consists of Kinda Samara and Ali Al Daioub, who teamed up with instrumentalist Dahesh Eshaik to provide a vibrant combination of song, percussion and scintillating strings.  Kinda Samara was born in Damascus, Syria and has lived in Scotland for thirteen years. She studied Law and Theology but has ended up singing and dancing. She was in a band with her brother playing music mixed from many countries. She speaks several languages, has worked as a translator and is a keen photographer. Her mellifluous voice and moving interpretations of songs have regularly delighted audiences in Aberdeen and elsewhere.   Ali Al Daioub is a freelance Syrian journalist, who has spent more than 25 years in journalism in Syria and the Arab world. He joined his wife in 2004 after she started her studies in Scotland. As a child in a village home with as yet no TV, he studied the Quran in the mornings under his father’s tutelage and in the evenings sang poems from the Sufi tradition for guests. The sad beauty of the melodies and his parents’ voices also influenced him. Alongside reading, singing is his lifetime hobby.