Hanzala
A red thread of grief and resistance, scored for oud, strings and a child who refuses to turn around.
One continuous arc, lit like a single ember.
Hanzala is a full-length work for the ensemble — nine movements, no interval — built around the silhouette of the barefoot child who, in Naji al-Ali's drawings, always turns his back to us. It is a meditation on exile, witness, and the refusal to look away.
Touring 2026–27 as a concert or a full residency, Hanzala adapts from an intimate quartet to the complete company with strings, voice, and projected line-art.
Hanzala, upcoming
All shows →No dates on the calendar right now. Join the circle below and you'll be first to know when this project tours.
Watch & listen
- Hadi EldebekOud & composition
- Mohamad EldebekPercussion
- Layla HaddadViolin
- Samir NasrCello
- Nadia KaramVoice
Developed with support from presenting partners committed to new intercultural work.
Our students were still talking about it a week later — it opened a real conversation about witness and exile.
The room went completely silent, then completely alive. I've never seen an audience hold their breath like that.
They gave our community a way to grieve together that felt honest, never performative. People left lighter.
A rare thing — music that asks hard questions of a young audience and trusts them to sit with the answers.
Booking them was the easiest yes of our season. Every rider detail was handled before we even asked.
Hanzala doesn't perform grief so much as hold it up to the light.
The Brooklyn RailRead →
An oud line that seems to remember more than any one person could — devastating and, somehow, consoling.
Bandcamp DailyRead →
The most quietly radical concert I saw all year. It refuses spectacle and earns every silence.
HyperallergicRead →
Listen to the story behind Hanzala
An in-the-room conversation about how this project was made — coming soon to the Brooklyn Nomads podcast.
Bring Hanzala to your room.
This project can be adapted for concerts, schools, festivals, cultural institutions, and community gatherings. One inquiry, one human reply.