Sukoun ("Stillness") for string quartet

I wrote Sukoun (which means "stillness" in Arabic) while visiting Kuwait, after spending a long period studying in Manchester. Over the course of a few weeks, I composed late at night. Just before sunrise, I would hear the dawn call to prayer: a beautiful, song-like call rising from all the mosques at once, each one recited by a different muezzin. The atmosphere was a spiritual soundscape that filled my workspace.

That moment of quiet transition from night to day, from darkness to the first ray of sunlight, deeply inspired me. I tried to capture that feeling of transformation in the music, with the ethereal atmosphere shaped by the layered calls to prayer. It became, for me, a kind of nocturne that echoes both stillness and awakening.

Messages Quartet

Wojciech Koprowski, 1st violin

Oriana Masternak, 2nd violin

Maria Shetty, viola

Beata Urbanek, cello

Wojciech Marzec, recording, mastering, and editing

Recorded in Studio B&B Records, Niepołomice, Poland 9-May-2025