Bendewarî/İntizar/Longing

Sakina Teyna is a traditional singer who was born into a Kurdish family in Varto, a small town in the Kurdish south-east of Turkey. Today, few people need any introduction to the tensions such an identity holds. It will come as little surprise, then, that Sakina is now a self-identified ‘political refugee’ in Vienna, Austria.

Not only is she a Kurd, but she is also an Alevi – a sect within Islam often at odds with the Sunni Muslim discourse of the current government in Turkey. This first album from her latest ensemble, Sakina & Friends, is a defiantly multicultural piece of work in the face of rising nationalism. Sakina sings in the Kurdish dialects of Zaza, Kurmanji and Sorani, as well as Turkish, Armenian, Farsi and Azeri.

The musicians are diverse as well. Iranian guitarist and composer Mahan Mirarab is responsible for most of the arrangements, while Turkish violinist Efe Turumtay, Spanish clarinettist Oscar Antoli and Austrian percussionist Jörg Mikula together create a musical backdrop for her jazz-steeped voice. This is an ornate, in a sense very central European take on the traditional music of Kurdistan, with a passionate political call for harmony and Kurdish rights.