In December 2023, as the genocide in Gaza unfolded, the Greek Orthodox Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem made the unprecedented decision to cancel all Christmas festivities. Commissioned by Bethlehem-based arts center The Wonder Cabinet and Radio alHara in response to that moment, BETHLEHEM brings together Beirut musicians Sary Moussa and Abed Kobeissy with Lawrence Sammour, the Church of the Nativity choir director since 1970. Their initial collaboration was a remotely recorded work, broadcast on Radio alHara on Christmas Eve 2023 in lieu of traditional Church celebrations, and re-broadcast two days later on dozens of radio stations worldwide, including NTS, Refuge Worldwide, and LYL Radio. 

Built around Sammour’s voice and traditional liturgical hymns from the Greek Orthodox tradition sung in Arabic, BETHLEHEM unfolds through buzuq, electronics, and drone. Moussa and Kobeissy place Sammour’s singing at the centre of the work, its devotional and historical character retaining full presence while entering into dialogue with a discreet electroacoustic language and allowing for extended instrumental passages and sonic textures that flow from the vocal source material. The collaboration itself was initially shaped by separation, the product of long-distance recordings and conversations at a time when travel between the artists was impossible. Sammour recorded a series of a capella hymns at Radio alHara studio in Bethlehem, with Moussa and Kobeissy then composing and recording instrumental pieces around them in Beirut, resulting in a uniquely powerful contemporary musical work, and a document of artistic exchange across borders that remain violently imposed.

The following year, BETHLEHEM was able to mount its first live concert at Le Guess Who? Festival in Utrecht in November 2024. Marking the first in-person meeting of Sammour with Moussa and Kobeissy, the exquisite ceremonial restraint and emotional power of this performance prompted an extended ovation. In 2025 the musicians expanded upon their original composition during a residency at the Beirut & Beyond International Music Festival, yielding additional studio and live recordings, joined by double bassist Makram Aboul Hosn. The collection of recordings spanning 2023-2025 was then integrated and mixed by Radwan Ghazi Moumneh (Jerusalem In My Heart, Matana Roberts, Suuns) at Montréal's Hotel2Tango to produce an album-length document.

BETHLEHEM is an encounter between distinct musical practices grounded in mutual respect and careful listening. Sacred chant and contemporary composition coexist without hierarchy, creating a work that speaks to grief without spectacle, to resilience without sentimentality, irreducible to a political statement or an exercise in cultural preservation. In giving contemporary form to one of the world's oldest living liturgical traditions, BETHLEHEM affirms music’s capacity to carry memory across borders and make space for communion in the face of enduring separation. Thanks for listening.