Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar singer-songwriter Jamala – the 2016 Eurovision winner – performed a live premiere of her QIRIM album with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra on The Eurovision Village stage on Thursday 11 May 2023.
From mysterious mountains and lifeless steppes to lively seaside villages, Jamala invited the audience on a journey across the Ukrainian peninsula Crimea, shining a spotlight on a culture and language we know little about. QIRIM includes 14 ancient songs, each representing a part of Crimea.
Jamala had gathered songs from across her homeland for decades – over 80 Crimean musicians joined the album’s creation, to preserve the peninsula’s history. The people who inspired and created them now live under a grave threat to their existence. “But is it possible to erase the memory of the monumental beauty of the music that was passed across generations?” she asked.
