Canticum Novum

Canticum Novum wishes to offer a programme around the great feast of Christianity that is Christmas. A time of spirituality but also of meeting, sharing and gathering of cultures and peoples.

At the crossroads of traditional Syrian repertoires and Canticum Novum's cosmopolitan identity, Samâ-ï evokes the cultural crossroads that was ancient Aleppo and the musical impregnation of the cultures involved.

The city of Aleppo, one of the oldest cities in the world and the ancient capital of an Amorite kingdom, was also a key commercial point at the end of one of the Silk Roads, and over the long term built its prosperity on trade and its place in the strategic stakes of the ancient and medieval Near East. Over the course of conquests and dominations, the city has developed a strong multicultural tradition nourished by its Byzantine, Arab, Turkish, Kurdish and Sephardic communities, and including the little-known yet astonishing variety of Eastern Christianity made up of Maronite, Greek Orthodox, Armenian, Syriac, Nestorian and Coptic Christians.

With Samâ-ï, Canticum Novum gives an account of the richness and complexity of the poetic, literary and linguistic registers that have matured in this fertile melting pot of religions and cultures, which were never impermeable, fixed and identitarian blocks, but rather bridges between people, their creative needs and their spiritual aspirations.

Cast (10 musicians) 
Musical director: Emmanuel Bardon
Gulay Hacer Toruk, Emmanuel Bardon vocals
Valérie Dulac, fiddle 
Aliocha Regnard, nyckelharpa & fidula 
Marie-Domitille Murez harp 
Bayan Rida oud & vocals
Spyros Halaris kanun
Isabelle Courroy kaval flutes
Henri-Charles Caget, Ismaïl Mesbahi percussions