MAYA YOUSSEF Syrian Dreams Maya Youssef, Barney Morse-Brown, Sebastian Flaig, Attab Haddad

“The war started in my homeland in 2011. From that point on making music was no longer a choice, it was a crucial means to express and come to terms with intense feelings of loss and sadness from seeing my people suffer and my land destroyed. On a hot summer’s afternoon in London in 2012 I was watching the news. At the time I felt overwhelmed, as if I was going to explode, so I held my qānūn and ‘Syrian dreams’ came out of me. That was the very first piece of music I wrote.”