Author: Yara Asmar

  • Pitchfork Includes Yara Asmar’s “Synth Waltzes and Accordion Laments” in the 30 Best Jazz and Experimental Albums of 2023
  • أفضل أصوات جديدة من العالم العربي
  • The Quietus: Accordion laments – an interview with yara asmar
  • 5:04 PM

    5:04 PM

    If fear creeps so easily into the fantastical worlds that shield us from real-life horrors, how do these tiny universes serve their original purpose? And why is it that the things we choose not to listen to always find a way through the cracks where they fester and mold? Recorded using an old harpsichord, programmable…

  • Sonatina for 19 music boxes

    Sonatina for 19 music boxes

    Interactive sound installationExhibited at the Vogelklang – Black ForestDate: May 4 2023 This installation consists of 19 programmable music boxes for which were pre-composed a series of short musical vignettes, assembled on a wooden board. People are invited to choose a paper and run it through a music box to play in a sort of…

  • The Cut-Throat Finch Preludes

    The Cut-Throat Finch Preludes

    Before the Lebanese civil war began, my grandfather had gathered up some savings to buy a 4-track reel to reel recorder onto which he went on to record the sounds of different birds. By the time the war started, he had already recorded the sounds of almost 600 birds, and in his attic he stored…

  • The Black Forest Journals

    The Black Forest Journals

    There are strange creatures hiding in the forest, inside the tree stumps and below the carpets of moss: Pine wisps, wooden giants and mechanical birds. A tiny universe inside a room, this installation features these creatures and diary excerpts that document the chance encounters with them.

  • The soil and the sea

    The soil and the sea

    Original soundtrack composed for Daniele Rugo’s film: The Soil and the Sea.

  • Le Guess Who/Radio Al Hara

    Le Guess Who/Radio Al Hara

    “Radio Alhara presents an unprecedented collaboration between Beirut-based multi-instrumentalist and puppeteer Yara Asmar, electronic musician Sary Moussa, and Bethlehem-based tenor of the Greek Orthodox chorus of the Nativity church Laurence Samour. The experiment is as much an attempt of apprehending an unforeseen encounter, as well as resisting physical boundaries through sonic content. The collaboration is…

  • Beirut today: Yara Asmar on puppet-making, her favorite instruments, and time