By Niloufar Nourbakhsh | For Full Orchestra | 4′

Orchestral parts are available for rental (OM1010R).
For more information about perusal scores, rentals, or wholesale/bulk discounts, please contact us.

For more information about our order process for print and PDF purchases, check out our FAQ page.

From the composer:

Knell is inspired by imagining the very definition of this word: “the sound made by a bell when struck or rung, esp. the sound of a bell rung slowly and solemnly, as immediately after a death or at a funeral”. I aimed to depict a constant ringing bell that is re-contextualized with various evolving parallel lines that keep returning with a different orchestral color. 

As I was finalizing the details of this piece for Nashville Symphony Orchestra, my mother passed away after a 2-year battle with cancer. My mother wore a necklace that held a gold heart and two silver-bronze pendants of her faith, Sufism. Whenever she walked to my room, the pendants would make a sparkling bell like sound, and I knew my mother is on her way to me. Naturally at the premiere, Knell became a symphonic procession for her loss.  

When the Norwegian Radio Orchestra programmed Knell as a tribute to 2023 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Narges Mohammadi, it became a symphonic procession of not only my mother, but thousands of innocent Iranian people who had lost their lives during the woman life freedom movement in Iran. Formally, Knell functions as a prologue; I hope it’s a prologue to a future that is sparkling and bright like my mother’s necklace.

Premiere: First performed September 4, 2019 by the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Giancarlo Guerrero as part of the Composer Lab & Workshop. Revised version to be premiered on August 25, 2024 at the Bristol Beacon in Bristol, UK by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kirill Karabits as part of the 2024 BBC Proms.