Reem Kelani

NEWS

Please support Reem's music. Your donation via this Paypal link will help fund the recording & release of more songs.

LATEST NEWS

Friday 19 July 2024 was the official release date of Reem's single in support of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). Our aim is to raise funds for and awareness of UNRWA. The song is now available for download and streaming via Reem's Bandcamp page, as well as all major digital streaming platforms. All the proceeds from this initiative will go to UNRWA.

Reem's song "If I must die", is her setting to music of the final haunting poem by Refaat Alareer, who was assassinated by Israel in December 2023. Refaat was a writer and professor of English literature at the Islamic University of Gaza.

For this recording, Reem was accompanied by her longstanding pianist, Bruno Heinen. It was recorded in The Crowe's Nest Studio, London, in late February. Reem worked on the editing and mixing with Steve Lowe, the production engineer responsible for all her previous releases.

You can watch Reem's song video here, but do please support the song & buy a copy of the download, for UNRWA's sake and for the sake of the Palestinian people.

Read our press release in full here.

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Reem's classic debut album, Sprinting Gazelle: Palestinian Songs from the Motherland and the Diaspora, has been included in the English national curriculum: Model Music Curriculum for schools in England

The English curriculum guideline reads (page 79): Sprinting Gazelle is the debut album of performer, composer and researcher Reem Kelani. Kelani collected and arranged songs from Palestine and the Palestinian diaspora including from her maternal family in Nazareth and women in the refugee camps in Lebanon. As well as traditional music, the album includes her own settings of contemporary poetry. The title track is highlighted on the list for core listening, but the whole album will provide pupils with opportunities for further listening.

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GO TO BIOGRAPHY TO LEARN MORE ABOUT REEM

Albums

Reem Kelani
If I must die
download from Bandcamp
Reem Kelani
The Singer Said: Bird of Dawn
download from Bandcamp
Reem Kelani
Why Do I Love Her?
download from Bandcamp
Reem Kelani
Live at the Tabernacle
official release March 11th 2016
buy the album here
download from Bandcamp
Reem Kelani
Sprinting Gazelle
released february 2006
buy the album here

Reem Live

30 November 2024, 7pm
The Arnolfini Centre, Bristol

REEM BIOGRAPHY

Reem Kelani - Palestinian singer, musicologist and broadcaster - was born in England, raised in Kuwait and now lives in London. Working in the Diaspora, Reem has introduced countless non-Arab musicians to Arabic and Palestinian music.

Reem's reputation as an artist for whom her independence is an article of faith, musically, spiritually and politically, extends across the Arab and the non Arab worlds...

New Album

Reem Kelani - Live at the Tabernacle saw its release on 11 March 2016.

Press reviews

"A powerful reminder of Kelani's twin strengths as storyteller and arresting singer of Palestinian poetry and song." Financial Times

"Confirms Reem Kelani to be an important and compelling voice." Elsewhere, New Zealand

"Kelani has been described by the British media as an 'unofficial ambassador' for Palestine. However, as this album demonstrates, she is far more than that". Middle East Eye

"Live at The Tabernacle? is an amazing achievement. Reem Kelani, in my opinion, is the finest representative of Palestinian song and culture." TimnaTal Music, USA

"A combination of emotion, control and unerring direction characterizes the songs of the ?Palestinian? Diaspora that Reem Kelani delivers so effectively. A must-hear double CD: excellent sleeve notes provide no end of help for those wanting greater depth." New Internationalist magazine

"Kelani's indomitable spirit and her emotionally charged introductions to the songs, reflecting her roles as an educator and activist, are an integral part of the experience." Songlines

"Hers is a scholarly performance that penetrates the soul of her audience and encourages it to partake with spirit, mind, body, emotion, voice and memory." Khayr al-Din Abdul-Rahman, Palestinian writer and critic

Radio Reviews

"Reem is an astonishing vocalist, but on this track [1932] she shows her power as a composer." Max Reinhardt, Late Junction, BBC Radio 3

"A beautifully packaged double live album. When you listen to it in its entirety, you get a full sense of who this person is." Your Music with Graham Reid, RadioLIVE, New Zealand

Plaudits

'Featured Album of the Week', Irish Radio RT� lyric fm, Ireland - April 2016

Arabic reviews (translated)

"When I hear Kelani's novel renditions of traditional Palestinian music and songs from other Arab regions, I compare her engaging performance which merges the spiritual and the physical with the lyrics and music, like a worker bee giving endlessly, with the performance of preceding generations who used to sing like wax statues. But I also draw a comparison between her scholarly performance that penetrates the soul of her audience and encourages it to partake with spirit, mind, body, emotion, voice and memory, to the clone-like performances to which many are na�vely addicted." Khayr al-Din Abdul-Rahman, Palestinian writer and critic