On June 12th, 2014, an estimated 1,566 unarmed Iraqi Air Force Cadets were killed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) at Camp Speicher in Tikrit. Shia and non-Muslim cadets were singled out from the Sunni Cadets as some senior officers ordered the Cadets to leave wearing civilian clothes for a 15 day leave to visit their families. The Cadets were kidnapped by gunpoint and taken on buses to the Al-Quisour Al-Re'asiya region. The killing methods varied from shooting cadets one by one to shooting them while lying down to ensure death. Camp Speicher is a single movement chamber work written for sextet (Clarinet, vn1,vn2, va, vc, and piano). The work is intended as a healing message to relatives and family members of victims of atrocities throughout the world. It incorporates both traditional and contemporary music practice as it weaves a tapestry of solemn moments with sudden jagged entrances of various instruments which slowly evolve and search for a resolution while eventually finding a place of hope and solace. The structure of this work is built on a number of middle eastern elements such as the use of the Hijaz scale throughout and fragments of the traditional Iraqi folk song
(Ah Ya Zain).
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