Epic of Gilgamesh

Celebrated French-Syrian singer and composer Abed Azrié presents his musical interpretation of The Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest great work of literature

11 October 2018, 7pm
Knowledge Centre, The British Library
96 Euston Road, London, NW1 2DB

Epic of Gilgamesh, tablet 11, story of the Flood.© The Trustees of the British Museum

Abed Azrié's performance of The Epic of Gilgamesh is the composer and singer’s first appearance in Britain, presented by the Foundation for Art and Psychoanalysis. Through an intricate layering of voices, music, and images, this new interpretation brings the timeless energy of the Sumerian-Babylonian poem to the present day. Alongside Azrié's singing of Gilgamesh’s narrative in Arabic, celebrated French actor Florient Azoulay reads fragments of the critically acclaimed English translation by Andrew George.

In line with Azrié's vision of each performance as a new creation, given the key role played by improvisation in the achieving of unforeseen compositions, musician Symo Reyn—a virtuoso in the qanun, a traditional Middle Eastern instrument—provides the performance with a fresh musical accompaniment. This collaborative performance is complemented by archaeological images from Mesopotamia projected on stage, inviting the audience to a multi-sensorial experience of Gilgamesh’s world.

Since its discovery in the nineteenth century, The Epic of Gilgamesh is still considered the oldest long poem in the world. Gripping and profound, its themes of friendship, struggle, love, personal transformation, and fear of death grapple with universal questions about the human condition that are resonant to this day.

Abed Azrié in conversation with Sally Groves and Fedja Klikovac on Epic of Gilgamesh.

Gilgamesh, at the beginning a tyrannical king, forges an unexpected friendship with Enkidu. At first a wild man, Enkidu was created by Gilgamesh's mother-goddess Aruru in response to the complaints regarding his ruling made by the people of Uruk. Together, Gilgamesh and Enkidu set against the monster Humbaba, who protects the Forest of Cedar, and, later, kill the divine bull sent by the goddess of love Ishtar when Gilgamesh rejects her advances.

Following a dream that one of the two should die as a punishment for killing the Bull of Heaven, Enkidu falls ill. The death of Enkidu changes the tone of the poem; Gilgamesh now laments. Alone, he searches for immortality, making a dangerous journey to find Utnapishtim, the survivor of the Babylonian Flood. After failing to secure a plant that can renew youth, Gilgamesh returns to Uruk still a mortal.

Abed Azrie, Epic of Gilgamesh, 2018. Courtesy of the artist.

The clay tablets of The Epic of Gilgamesh were found in the region of Nineveh, an important city in Ancient Mesopotamia, in the ruins of the library of Ashurbanipal, a king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the seventeenth century B.C. In the second half of the nineteenth-century, they were excavated and sent to the British Museum, where George Smith and other scholars spent decades deciphering the then never-seen cuneiform script. The poem, however, is not complete—something that contemporary scholars argue should be taken into consideration when reading the work. New fragments of the poem are still being discovered and deciphered.

Note: Epic of Gilgamesh was hosted at the British Library as part of their ‘Season of Sound’ annual celebration of everything audio. A recording of the performance is held in their sound archive. The concert was filmed by The Foundation for Art and Psychoanalysis.

Abed Azrié, Epic of Gilgamesh, 2019. Performance recorded at the British Library, London, October 2019.

Abed Azrié is a renowned singer and composer. Born in Aleppo and educated in France, Azrié’s work evades any specific musical tradition. He draws on a wide range of influences for his compositions and performances, working in multiple languages—Arabic, Spanish, French, Venetian, English, and German. He has been inspired by many literary works, both contemporary and ancient, of which the authors include Adonis, Jean Cocteau, Kahlil Gibran, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Hafez, Omar Khayyam, and Andrea Zanzotto. Azrié's works create mesmerising immersive experiences, which have been praised by Jeff Buckley, Yehudi Menuhin, and Leonard Cohen, who described Azrié as ‘a marvellous singer and author.’ Azrié has released some twenty music albums, composed music for films and published several books, including his well-known adaptation of the Gilgamesh epic into French.

Florient Azoulay is a French dramaturge, director, author, translator, teacher, and actor, who is currently co-artistic director of La Salle blanche school and theatre in Paris. Azoulay has worked in many fields, making international contributions to theatre, opera, and music performances. He has worked with renowned writers, actors, directors, instrumentalists and composers—including Abed Azrié.

Symo Reyn is a contemporary musician whose primary instrument is the classical Middle Eastern qanun. The qanun is the only musical instrument in the oriental takht (classical Arabic ensemble) that features all the notes of the Arabic scale on open strings. A critic in La Provence writes: ‘Symo is a genuine virtuoso of an instrument that he plays in a staggering way. Sometimes he sounds like a DJ scratching vinyl. Some other times, he produces delicious crystalline tones.’