Published: 23 September 2022
Last updated: 5 March 2024
Ahead of new performances, the singer-songwriter reflects on the work he created with composer Nigel Westlake based on the Avinu Malkeinu prayer.
“Instil me with a greater sense of compassion so that I can be liberated.”
That quote, from the Jewish prayer Avinu Malkeinu, is at the heart of Compassion, the song cycle for voice and orchestra composed by singer-songwriter Lior Attar and celebrated composer Nigel Westlake, which the pair will perform with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in November. Composed almost 10 years ago, the work has become a classic and is regularly performed around the country – more than any comparable piece of modern Australian classical music.
The work was borne out of tragic circumstances. Westlake’s son, Eli, was murdered in 2008 in a road rage incident; a year later, Westlake and his wife, Jan, held a memorial concert, and invited Attar, one of Eli’s favourite musicians, to perform. It was a hugely charged and emotional event, and at the end of Attar’s set of his own songs, he decided to conclude with an a capella rendition of Avinu Malkeinu, and its message of compassion. Following that performance Westlake and Attar met for the first time, and connected over the idea of creating a full orchestration of the hymn. The pair presented the work to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, which immediately commissioned a full-length work.
“I thought about what it was in Avinu Malkeinu that I wanted to transmit,” Attar says. “It was a message of universality, and the wisdom of the trait of compassion, which I believe is central to what defines us as human beings.”
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Lior reflects on ten years of Compassion (Guardian)
Photo: Lior Attar (Sydney Symphony Orchestra)
