“Like many people, music is the heart of the lives of the Yezidis, and indeed it is also the way they have worshiped the Almighty,” Nicholson told Rudaw's Dildar Harki on Monday in an online interview. “They are worshippers of God, just like the rest of us. And like many of us, they use music for much of their praying.”
She notes that much of the group’s music was “wiped out” after the Islamic State (ISIS) group attacked the Yezidi homeland of Shingal in 2014 and unleashed a genocide against the minority.
AMAR, founded in 1991 and brought to the Kurdistan Region around 1994, launched the Yezidi Music Programme last year in an effort to preserve the art. The project was approved by the Yezidi Supreme Spiritual Council.
Led by British virtuoso violinist Michael Bochmann, AMAR’s project records, notates and archives ancient Yezidi hymns, notes the organization.
“We recorded and taught it back to them by means of brilliant British musician art,” said Nicholson, who is also the chairperson of the charity.
“Our patron, His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, was absolutely delighted and had them at his own home,” she said, referring to Yezidi students in the UK taking part in the AMAR project.
Part of a British Council initiative to preserve the heritage of people who live in conflict zones, the initiative aims to provide a therapeutic outlet for participants as well.
“Scores have already been recorded, and will be archived in Oxford’s Bodleian Library, the University of Duhok, and the Museum of Antiquities in Sulaimani,” according to a promo video by the charity.
Nicholson recounted to Rudaw her memories of the ISIS takeover of Shingal.
“I saw the horror they were being put to … [They were] rushing to cross the border desperately to save their lives. They had left everything behind.”
Out of 6,417 Yezidis kidnapped by ISIS in 2014, 2,880 remain missing, according to data from the office responsible for rescuing abducted Yezidis, overseen by the Kurdistan Region presidency.
The ethnoreligious minority lived mainly in the district of Shingal in Nineveh before it was attacked by ISIS on August 3, 2014, in what has been recognised by the United Nations as a genocide. Many Yezidi men and elderly people were killed, and young women and girls sold into sexual slavery.
