Composer: Michael Bussewitz-QuarmDetailsFormat: Mixed Choir - 4 voicesVoicing: SATBIncidental Divisi: S, S, A, A, T, TSolo Requirements: optional solosAccompaniment: keyboardInstrumentation: pianoNotation: standardPerformance Length: 6:05 Study Scores & Audio FilesStudy Score & Audio Order Printed ScoresOrder site / Alternate source of score: JW Pepper Texts & TranslationsLanguage(s): EnglishText Source: Lamiya SafarovaText: Don’t call me “Refugee”. My life, my destiny Has been so painful, so don’t call me refugee. My heart aches, my eyes cry, I beg of you, please don’t call me “refugee”. It feels like I don’t even exist in the world, As if I’m a migrant bird far away from my land Turning back to look at my village. I beg of you, don’t call me “refugee”. Oh, the things I’ve seen during these painful years, The most beautiful days I’ve seen in my land, I’ve dreamed only about our house. I beg of you, don’t call me “refugee”. My name is Guled, my name is Lamiya, my name is Alejandro, my name is Miguel, My name is Wyclef, my name is Angela, my name is Nisho, my name is Professor White Eyes, “Refugee!" “Refugee!” Don’t call me “refugee”! My name is Lamiya. Please, I beg of you, Don’t call me “refugee”. Programming AidsPerformance Difficulty: moderateDescriptive Terms: refugeeself-identityadvocacydeterminationperseveranceAllow Excerpts: Composition is a single movementComposer’s Notes: When Lamiya was nine years old, she lost her home and her village. It was the 1990s and there was war g in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of the Caucasus. The adjacent village had been burned to the ground. Children were kidnapped and held for a ransom. Missiles targeted Jabrayil (pronounced ja-brah-YIL) and the villagers are forced to flee. Her family eventually settled along the shore of the Caspian Sea, living in a simple one-bedroom shack. She began writing poems to express her feelings. The loss of her home and her village Jabrayil had a profound impact on Lamiya. She often would stay up well past midnight, with a single bulb lighting the room and write endlessly. Her mother recalls once waking up in the middle of the night one time to find Lamiya writing in her notebook as water slowly dripped from the ceiling onto her head. She scolded, “Go to bed. We don't need your poems if you get sick and we lose you.” One of Lamiya’s poems shared her distress when her classmates in the capital city of Baku would taunt her by calling her “refugee”. In English, “refugee” is defined as a person who flees from persecution or danger. However, in the Azerbaijani language, it is "gachgin" [pronounced gotch-GIN], meaning “someone who runs away” and someone who is not brave. She was brave. She did matter. And through her poems, she discovered her strength. Performing choirs may choose to use single solo voices for each separate name in the middle, aleatoric section. “My Name is Lamiya: Don’t Call Me ‘Refugee’,” is part of the Child Refugee Awareness Choral Consortium. Additional InformationDate of Completion: September, 2017Date of First Performance: Thursday, October 26, 2017Premier Performance Data: Western Carolina University Choir (Alison Thorp, cond), Recital Hall of Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NCAdditional Performances: December 9, 2018: Harmonium Choral Society of Madison, New Jersey, Anne Matlack, Conductor March 18, 2018: Metropolitan Youth Orchestra, Suffolk Symphonic Chorus, Shoshana Hershkowitz, Conductor
