بيت لحم BETHLEHEM بيت لحم

A collaboration made possible across borders that could not be crossed, BETHLEHEM brings together the voice of Lawrence Sammour—who has led the choir of the Church of the Nativity for more than five decades—with the electro-acoustic language of Beirut composers Sary Moussa and Abed Kobeissy.

Created in response to the Church of the Nativity's decision to suspend Christmas celebrations during the genocide in Gaza, the work transforms traditional liturgical hymns into a spacious and deeply moving composition where voice, electronics, buzuq, and atmosphere coexist without hierarchy. Neither reinterpretation nor preservation, BETHLEHEM is an act of listening across distance: a work of mourning that insists on the continued presence of cultural memory, devotion, and human connection.