By Niloufar Nourbakhsh | For Orchestra | 4′

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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 orchestration version first performed December 10, 2023 at the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize Concert by the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, conducted by Andres Maurette.