DaCapo Chamber Choir presents "Colour of Freedom"

DaCapo Chamber Choir, directed by Leonard Enns.
Live concert recording of "Colour of Freedom" by Iman Habibi with guest vocalist Amir Haghighi.
November 11, 2017 Kitchener, ON
This is Iman Habibi’s response to the 2009 Green Movement in Iran. The protests against corruption and election irregularities led to a brutal government crack-down on protestors, to torture, imprisonment and killings. Watching from his adopted Canadian home, Habibi responded as best he knew how, through music.
Born and raised in Iran, but immigrating to Vancouver in his late teens, Habibi composes from a deep understanding of both Persian and Western cultures. Rather than a pastiche of styles, as is often the outcome of such efforts, Colour of Freedom is a dialogue, a mutual lament and embrace, the cry of one voice growing from and with the pain of the other, and eventually resting in a gentle stretch towards hope. The English text is by Marina Nemat, herself imprisoned and tortured in Tehran as a teenager, already a quarter century before the Green Revolution of 2009. Having escaped to and settled in Canada in 1991, she is now the author of several books on her experiences, a lecturer at University of Toronto, and a tireless advocate for humanitarian causes. While the choir sings her words, the soloist sings the Persian text of the 11th-century poet, Baba Taher, expressing deep personal sorrow. Both texts rise above despair at their conclusion: the Persian words, “Let’s spread the seeds of beneficence,” together with Nemat’s text, “I know
that hope will grow into an eternal ocean…the symphony of our voices witnessing the birth of a magnificent light.”

[@ImanHabibiMusic]

Thank you, DaCapo Chamber Choir and Amir Haghighi for this wonderful performance of Colour of Freedom. It is always a pleasure to hear you sing, and I look forward to the day when we can gather to make music in the same space again.

[@caroloconnor8103]

Oh my God! Thank you for posting this. This is one of the most powerful pieces I've ever heard. I was in the house, and I don't think there was a dry eye by the end of this! Gorgeous.