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Cape Town musicians and poets performed at Rondebosch United Church for ‘Notes from Exile’, a Mandela Day tribute to Palestinian composer Mahmoud Abuwarda. The concert celebrated his music, highlighted Gaza’s cultural resilience and raised funds to help him rebuild his life in Istanbul.
By ANWAR OMAR
On Saturday, July 18, 2026, marking Mandela Day, the Rondebosch United Church congregation hosted a musical tribute in aid of Mahmoud Abuwarda, a world-renowned Palestinian composer trying to rebuild his life from exile in Istanbul, Turkey.
A composer in exile
Abuwarda grew up in northern Gaza but is currently in exile in Istanbul, while his family remains in Gaza. Trained partly in the US, he is a classical guitarist, composer and music educator, and his evocative works bridge the rich heritage of traditional Arabic music with Western classical music. His chamber works, orchestral scores and solo instrumental music have been performed across Europe, the Middle East, the UK and the US.
Organiser Liesl Jobson explained that Israeli attacks forced him into exile. He tried to get his guitar out of Gaza but has no way of knowing whether it was destroyed or buried under rubble. According to Jobson, he simply doesn’t know, a fact that reflects the much larger tragedy of his displacement.
‘As a musician, I have my instruments, which are incredibly precious to me, and if somebody steals an instrument, it’s like they steal your arm,’ she said.
Leisl Jobson explaining how Mahmoud lost his Guitar
Notes from exile
Jobson’s relationship with Mahmoud began in November last year, when she was invited to a poetry-against-genocide event in Salt River. She decided against reading her own poems, having once before broken down in tears reading at a Mothers4Gaza event.
She relates how she felt: ‘I was aware that I had too much pain in my heart. I couldn’t perform my own poems. I couldn’t even write poems. And I was not confident that I could deliver poems from Palestine. But I knew that I could turn to my instrument and that I could play a piece of music. So, I reached out.’
With her bassoon, she felt she had the music without needing words, and in her search came across a piece by Abuwarda originally written for cello, the same register as the bassoon, which they adapted together for her instrument.
That collaboration grew when Abuwarda called Jobson from his hospital bed, asking her to record a new bassoon piece.
‘And I suddenly, again had that feeling of this is such a big thing. It’s, like, so important that the world hears his voice. And I’m just a humble bassoon player. And I didn’t feel confident that I could do it. So, I spoke to Tessa [Campbell], who’s a colleague of mine,’ Jobson said.
She agreed and pulled in Cape Philharmonic violinist Campbell to raise funds together. Abuwarda responded with a duet but, with no studio or computer access, he shared a scanned paper manuscript, handwritten in pencil.
Leisl Jobson describing how her relationship with Mahmoud developed and culminated with this event.
The project quickly outgrew the duet. Struggling for momentum, Jobson wrote a poem to honour Abuwarda while feeling overwhelmed by the task. She workshopped it with poet and activist Tania Haberland, recently back from Mauritius, who also committed to the cause. It was Haberland’s energy, Jobson says, that turned the idea into a concrete plan.
That developed into the seed of ‘Notes from Exile’, the concert Jobson organised and timed deliberately to fall on Mandela Day, the date South Africans celebrate by dedicating their time in service of others.
For Mahmoud, having his compositions performed in Cape Town carries specific significance. According to him, this collaboration is a meeting point between two histories of struggle—his own displacement and Cape Town’s history of apartheid—evidence that Palestinian culture can survive and still reach new audiences even in exile.
Jobson describes the emotional impact of his work as a rawness beyond ordinary description: ‘the kind of sound only music can hold once words run out. You have to hear the music,’ she says. ‘It’s the kind of beauty that brings you to tears, a voice out of Palestine carried entirely through sound.’
Alex Vavatzanidis (on guitar) and Matthias Remley-Ender (on cello) playing “Shattered Tent”, a duet composed by Mahmoud Abuwarda in exile. All the music performed at the event was composed by him.
The programme
The evening moved in a call-and-response between spoken word and music; poems threaded between each instrumental set. The readings drew on the work of a wide range of Palestinian poets and were performed by UCT drama students Tamara Dubeni and Stembiso Sibanda, brought on board by director Megan Choritz.
Tamara Dubeni reciting “Al-Breji refugee camp in Gaza” , a poem composed by Hind Joudah. Stembiso Sibanda (seated) together with Tamara Dubeni are UCT drama students and both of them recited several poems from various poets in Gaza.
The Cape Town ensemble included Matthias Remley-Ender on cello, David Cyster on clarinet, Timothy Hyslop on piano, Liesl Jobson on flute and bassoon, Anekin Pockpass and Alexandros Vavatzanidis on guitar, and Tessa Campbell on violin.
Abuwarda’s compositions included titles that read like diary entries from exile: ‘Olive Grove’ for solo guitar, ‘Scorched Hunger’, ‘Rubble of Houses’ and ‘Dreams of a Quiet Sky’ sat alongside the Alareer and Abu Nada poems.
The cast performed in pairs: Jobson and Campbell; Hyslop with cellist Matthias Remley-Ender; and the guitarists with their duet partners. The running order, Jobson said, was built so that spoken word and music could respond to each other, with each poem chosen to echo the piece beside it.
One chair on stage was left deliberately empty throughout the performance, which, according to director Megan Choritz, represented every artist and musician killed in Gaza, those who, unlike Abuwarda, will never get the chance to rebuild their lives or their work from exile.
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An interfaith stage
Looking back, Jobson realised that the cast spanned several faiths without her deliberately setting out to build it that way.
‘So, what was fascinating, at some point, I realised I’m here raised in the Christian tradition. There’s Megan, who’s a Jew, and Tessa, who’s a Muslim, and other people who are not professing any faith. But this universal drive to make art, to connect across our differences, across our instruments, across age groups,’ she reflected.
None of that was a condition for participating. The only requirement was a willingness to contribute towards a common goal. The group, comprising people of different faiths and none, was united as a cast that believes humanity matters more than any single instrument or creed.
Jobson says she was raised Christian and is proud to be a member of the Rondebosch United Church community, which donated the venue for the concert. She calls it an expression of her own spirituality.
The Freedom Steps and the Palestinian quilt
For Jobson, there’s a connection between Abuwarda’s situation and her activism in Cape Town. She has stood, week after week, on the Freedom Steps at St George’s Cathedral as part of the ongoing vigil against the genocide in Gaza. The cathedral is a place of deep significance for her since her youngest child was christened there by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Bringing Abuwarda’s music to Cape Town links that weekly protest with her faith and her identity as a musician, standing in solidarity with artists whose lives have been devastated by genocide.
‘I was so honoured to be able to connect the craftivism and activism to the musical reality that’s also very much who I am,’ she said.
Leisl Jobson explains her realisation of the interfaith dimension of the group, connecting it with the Palestistian quilt and the ongoing Vigil on the Freedom Steps at St Georges Cathedral.
A hand-stitched quilt, which grew out of the Wednesday vigils, now in their 144th week since October 2023, was on display as the backdrop to the performance. Inspired by a similar quilt made by Irish women under the banner of Craftivism for Palestine, women from Cape Town and beyond answered the call to stitch and combine hundreds of crocheted squares, each representing ten children killed in Gaza. The quilt now measures roughly 50 metres in length and tragically keeps growing.
Beyond the concert
It was an emotional and moving event, but a single event only goes so far towards rebuilding a life uprooted by genocide, so Jobson has set up a BackaBuddy campaign to keep support flowing beyond the concert night. It aims to raise R300 000 to replace lost instruments and equipment and ease the financial strain of Mahmoud’s efforts to compose while in exile.
The fund is still in its early days, and donations, however small, can be made at backabuddy.co.za/campaign/notes-of-exile-palestinian-composer-fund
