A Palestinian Composers Playlist

“You come out of all this with a clear, sharp feeling that you are a stranger in all of this. Your real homeland is in exile,” composer Wisam Gibran says in Nili Belkind’s new book, Music in Conflict: Palestine, Israel and the Politics of Aesthetic Production. 

“So you start to search for it—to create it—in the music; in musical language. And at the end, you understand that identity you don’t inherit; you make, you create. For me Palestine, whatever it’s called, is something very very individual.… Every person has his own Palestine.”

Given the shifts in borders and powers over the last century, this seems only natural. Palestine entered the 20th century as part of the Ottoman Empire; fell under British rule after World War I; saw geographic erasure and mass displacement in with the Nakba of 1948 and again in 1967 with the Six-Day War; and, despite the attempted peace processes of the 1990s, continues to face an uncertain future—especially in light of this year’s expulsion of Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah, which has resulted in the worst violence seen in years. At the same time, western influences on Palestine have shaped and reshaped the music to come out of cities like Ramallah and Bethlehem, and around the world from composers who are part of the Palestinian diaspora. By no means comprehensive, this playlist offers a primer to the generations and geographies that have created music both political and personal.