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BETHLEHEM

support: Fadi Tabbal
VIERNULVIER & Splinter
  • Sun 08.11
    19:00 - 22:30
    Sint-Elisabethkerk, Gent
    Tickets

A Sunday service full of resilience and solace through art. The internationally acclaimed ‘BETHLEHEM’ project by Lawrence Sammour, Sary Moussa and Abed Kobeissy is making a stop at the Church of the Old Beguinage of St Elizabeth. The programme is completed by Fadi Tabbal, a Lebanese musician, producer, sound engineer and lecturer whose work spans minimalist ambient, electronic music, drone and contemporary classical music.

VIERNULVIER & Splinter present the ‘BETHLEHEM’ project in the church of Het Oud Begijnhof Sint-Elisabeth in Ghent. This electro-acoustic work weaves a link between sacred liturgical tradition and experimental electronic creation. 

It’s Christmas 2023, and Bethlehem’s Greek Orthodox Church of the Nativity choses to cancel all festive celebrations in response to the era-defining ethnic cleansing taking place in Palestine. In this context, Wonder Cabinet commissioned a new piece that brought together Lawrence Sammour—head of the Church of the Nativity’s choir for over fifty years—with Beirut-based artists and musicians Sary Moussa and Abed Kobeissy.

Blending sacred choral tradition with experimental electronic music, the work was broadcasted on Christmas Eve 2023. A year later, the project had its first live premiere at Le Guess Who? Festival in Utrecht, Netherlands, marking the first in-person meeting of the three collaborators, who had completed the work remotely due to travel restrictions between Palestine and Lebanon. The 32-minute live version was performed together for the first time during the festival.

In December 2025, Wonder Cabinet, Radio alHara and the artists presented the work again in Beirut as part of the Beirut and Beyond International Music Festival. We’re honoured to invite them for this performance in Ghent, through a collaboration between VIERNULVIER & Splinter vzw.

 

Timings TBA

“Their piece, entitled Christmas in Mourning, begins with a solemn reflection and a moment of silence for those killed in Palestine and Lebanon led by Sammour, whose powerful recitations then reverberate [...] over Moussa’s thrumming electronics and Kobeissy’s delicate buzuq. The trio’s performance is profoundly, heart-rendingly affecting.”

– CRACK Magazine
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Fadi Tabbal (by Rachet Tabet)

Fadi Tabbal is a Lebanese musician, producer, sound engineer and educator whose work consists of minimalist pieces ranging from ambient and electronic to drone and contemporary classical.

Tabbal has released eight solo albums between 2013 and 2026. Although his early work was composed solely on guitar, he slowly moved towards synths, electronics, voice samples and tape loops, expanding his sound palette and further exploring the concept of “controlled randomness” in his compositions.

Across his career, Tabbal was a member of several cult Lebanese bands: psychedelic rock band The Incompetents, punk band Scrambled Eggs. He has also worked closely with Youmna Saba, Charbel Haber and Mayssa Jallad over the years in their respective projects. His most recent project ‘Snakeskin' with singer-songwriter Julia Sabra is an electronic dream pop duo, shapeshifting above ambient and industrial undercurrents. Snakeskin has released three albums since 2022.

 

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