Those Forgotten

Syrian protest in Newcastle reimagined by Sue Bowerman.

"As a radio documentary producer, I work mostly with authentic stories and I was initially drawn to this recording because of the subjectivity, Syria. What I didn’t know would happen was that I would find a piece of writing by a year 4 child who attends my son’s school (School21) (which I saw on his Mother’s Facebook page), in which he shares his personal insights into the Syrian war and how he would like to help.

The piece samples both the protest speech, which contests the US Air Strikes with excerpts from Panos Booth’s story, set to a hauntingly extraordinary piece of music featuring the Syrian vocalist, Dima Orsho. This ‘edited’ piece of music became the auditory backdrop for the reworking. Challenges were the ‘noise’ and foggy ‘auditory’ nature of the original protest recording and weaving in short excerpts from Panos’s writing to sympathetically enhance the original recording. Panos didn’t want to feature his voice, so he agreed that my son, Obi Nwachukwu, a year 2 student at his school, could do so.

So I took the parts, which highlighted his incredibly insightful understanding of this war and end with his wishes for people to take action, to welcome Syrian Refugees into the UK with open arms. I was deeply touched by his compassion and generosity and I hope this is conveyed in the piece. The war sounds are taken from original field recordings, recorded in Syria. The work was produced entirely in Pro Tools.

Music Credit: Kinan Azmeh & Morgenland Chamber Orchestra

Published on 21 Dec 2014 November 22nd live at Morgenland Festival Osnabrueck 2014 Dima Orsho, Vocals Manfred Leuchter, Akkordeon Conductor: Naci Oezguec Camera: Guenter Wallbrecht, Felix Luebbert Soundrecording: Florian B. Schmidt Editing: Guenter Wallbrecht

Syrian War SFX: Battle of Aleppo 2016 - Fierce Fighting and Firefights Between Rebels and SAA | Syria War"

Part of the Protest and Politics project - find out more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/protest