Kinnah - EH/PN

Kinnah
for English horn and piano
by Katherine Needleman

“A kinnah is a dirge, lamentation, and elegy all in one,” writes oboist and composer Katherine Needleman. “Known particularly for their associations with Jewish professional mourning women, kinnot cover themes of loss, destruction, God’s fury, exile, arguing with God, dreams, and longing.” Needlman’s KINNAH is a complex and deeply affecting work for english horn and piano, incorporating a Yiddish memorial song for Holocaust survivors, which grates against intentionally discordant references to a Nazi anthem. The composer adds that “the name of a dear friend, departed suddenly and before her time in 2021, appears multiple times in musical acrostic form.”