Nenni nenni

24 children on the road and 4 percussionists unfold their imposing instrumentation to install a magical scene. Arabic nursery rhymes are an invitation to enter and share a poetic universe whose memory is lost in the mists of time and that of our infancy.

Nenni Nenni is a collection of Arabic rhymes rewritten for the children’s choir of the Masters of the Bouches du Rhône (direction Samuel Coquard) and Ensemble Symblêma Percussions.
Zad Moultaka returns to the melodies that rocked his childhood. He lets them express himself, transformed by his memory, and surrounds them with sounds that his imagination creates into the deformations of his memory. It draws on the millennial energy of tradition and relies on his childhood experience to join the principle of a constant renewal of creation.

For many years, every summer, the Lebanese composer Zad Moultaka has roamed the roads of the mountains, visited the villages in search of fragments of his memory sound. Among the patiently collected material are lullabies, rhymes, short, rhythmic or “melodic” forms, themes often related to social or religious festivals, which represent the naive and popular side. This intimate space is rooted in a vast receptacle, that of the collective memory. Zad Moultaka composed from this material a series of “rhymes”, entitled “Nenni Nenni”, of extreme poetic energy. gardens populated witches, amazing beings, talking animals, fears and laughter …
The melodies create a tension that the percussionists, become almost dancers or singers.
The “Nenni Nenni” project is the culmination of long-term research and reflection. It involves very important notions related to heritage, to oral literature, to the dreamlike and archaic world of childhood, to the vilification of these repertoires and to contemporary creation.
For many years, every summer, the Lebanese composer Zad Moultaka has roamed the roads of the mountains, visited the villages in search of fragments of his sound memory. Among the patiently collected material are lullabies, rhymes, short, rhythmic or “melodic” forms, themes often related to social or religious festivals, which represent the naive and popular side. This intimate space is rooted in a vast receptacle, that of the collective memory. It is among the elderly especially that this imaginary fantasy remains intact, gardens populated witches, amazing beings, talking animals, fears and laughter … These rhymes and formulas that children recite and sing heckling, represent a kind of sacredness in the ritual of the game. Most are anonymous, and almost always very old.
Zad Moultaka plans to compose from this popular material a series entitled “Nenni Nenni”, of extreme poetic energy.
The concert is conceived as a show and an incursion into this imaginary world. Two choruses face each other, they represent the two inner voices that play, compete or bicker. At the center of the stage is a set of drums, of which drum and bass drum, essential tools for dramatization and the passage into the world of dreams. Nursery rhymes are sung in Arabic. This choice is primarily artistic but it also promises a fruitful symbolic exchange. The meeting between children facilitates cultural and social exchanges. It values Arabic-speaking children, highlighting the age of their heritage and its proximity to ours.
Zad Moultaka, who began in 2002 a revisit of the tradition of mouthwash (project repeated many times after its creation under the title “Zàrani”), wanted to address this magical and serious domain of nonsense childish, to orchestrate the images of his own childhood. It’s as if he were returning to this burgeoning universe, reviving these games and absurd rhymes, these emotions, between fear and wonder, with his own instruments, to re-stage these characters, aware that this intimate space is rooted in a vast receptacle, that of the collective memory.

Extrait de la partition