Mansur Rajih and Liv Runesdatter’s collaboration spans over ten years, and Liv’s music to Mansur’s poetry has been conveyed through more than 350 concerts in Europe, the Middle East and the Caucasus, in collaboration with musicians from Azerbaijan, Syria, Iran, Baluchistan, Palestine, Lebanon and Norway.

In “Still they sing” a musical universe is created where rhythmic, harmonic structures and ornamentation from the Ottoman Empire meet related harmonic structures from the folk musical Haugian tradition in Vestfold.

Liv Runesdatter’s extensive and critically acclaimed career as a singer and composer spans 25 years. She tours over large parts of the world, and has collaborated with artists from more than 30 different countries.

Mansur Rajih came to Norway from Yemen as Norway’s first free city writer almost 25 years ago. He has been a political prisoner for 15 years, but was also referred to as Yemen’s national poet in modern times. After his release, he has worked both as a poet and human rights activist, and among other things, he has published four critically acclaimed poetry collections in Norwegian. The last collection of poems, “Der trærne sto” was published in autumn 2021.

Ahmad Al Khatib is considered to be one of the world’s top three oud players. He is Palestinian, born and raised in a refugee camp in Jordan, where the family has lived since they were forced to flee in the 60s. He started learning the oud early and after finishing his studies he moved to Ramallah to teach. In 2002 the political situation forced him to leave Palestine and in 2004 he settled in Sweden where he currently works as a teacher and lecturer at the University of Gothenburg. He has collaborated with many of the leading representatives of Arabic music, released many records and toured the Middle East, India, USA, Europe and Brazil.

Mansur Rajih – recitation
Liv Runesdatter – vocals
Ahmad Al-Khatib – oud
Torben Snekkestad – saxophone and clarinet (NO)
Youssuf Hbeisch – percussionist
Harpreet Bansal – violin
Svante Henryson – cello