Listen to the new duet from Mahsa Vahdat and Solveig Slettahjell; single track about the search for freedom.
On New Year’s Day in 2021, Artin, a one-year-old boy from Iran, was found, having drifted ashore on the island of Karmøy on the Norwegian west coast. He was identified after painstaking police work where it was discovered that the entire family had drowned in the English Channel during an attempt to make it from France to England in an inflatable rubber dinghy late in October 2020. The family had fled from Iran some months earlier. Little Artin drifted with the wind and currents all the way to Karmøy, where he was found on a beach two months later.
This refugee tragedy is the basis for lyrics written by Erik Hillestad, which the Iranian artist Mahsa Vahdat has made a melody to. Atabak Elyasi wrote a Persian version of the lyrics, and as soon as the travel restrictions due to the pandemic made it possible, the song was recorded as a duet between Mahsa and the Norwegian singer Solveig Slettahjell. On grand piano we hear Tord Gustavsen and on trumpet Sjur Miljeteig. “Lullaby of the sea – Havets voggesang” is now being released as a single track by Kirkelig Kulturverksted one year after Artin was found on the beach.
All the income from the streaming of this track goes to the organisation “A Drop in the Ocean”.
Photo Credits:
(1) Mahsa Vahdat,
(2) Solveig Slettahjell
(unknown/website).