Kinetic Ensemble will partner with Musiqa to present the world premiere of Canadian-American composer Karim Al-Zand’s "The Strangers’ Case." The Grammy Awward-winning, Lebanese-American tenor Karim Sulayman joins the ensemble for this song cycle for tenor and string orchestra that gathers poems and other turn-of-the-century accounts by immigrants to the United States, and situates them among texts from canonically venerated authors including Shakespeare and Dickinson.

“Lady in the Harbor” is the story of a young Polish girl destined for the textile sweatshops, and “Such an Illumination” comes from a Syrian refugee fleeing persecution in his homeland. “Island of Angels” excerpts lines written in the wake of the 1882 Asian Exclusion Act. The anonymous poem, translated from Chinese, was found inscribed on the walls of a San Francisco Bay immigrant detention facility.

"The Strangers’ Case" will be preceded by the incidental music to Igor Stravinsky’s ballet Apollon Musagète, which he wrote contemporaneously with many of Al-Zand’s texts. Both the composer and his longtime collaborator, choreographer George Balanchine, have cited Apollon as a turning point in their careers: the pair themselves later immigrated to the United States, where their professional partnership continued to flourish.