THERE IS AN OUD IN THE ORCHESTRA

A beautiful immigrant story about music, heartbreak, and the determination to change the status quo.

Daoud wanted to play the oud. He grew up listening to the dulcet tones of his grandfather's instrument, the mystical sound of Tarab, Tarab, Tarab. But when he asks his grandfather to teach him, the older man rejects the idea: "No, no, no. There is no oud in the orchestra here. You are better off learning the song of numbers. Become an accountant, a lawyer, a judge. Forget the oud! Leave such songs for the birds."

Undeterred, Dauod builds his own oud and teaches himself as best he can. Determined to bring the oud to the world stage, he breaks through the barriers that once excluded his grandfather, an Iraqi immigrant to Israel. Soon Daoud is performing in front of massive audiences, and his grandfather is able to live out his dream through the generations that came after him.

Sarah Sassoon is a writer and poet of Iraqi-Jewish descent. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Michigan Quarterly Review, Lilith, The Ilanot Review, The Roadrunner Review and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the Andrea Moriah Poetry prize, and a runner-up for the Anna Davidson Rosenberg Poetry Award. Her first children's picture book, 'Shoham's Bangle' is forthcoming with Kar-Ben Publishing in 2022.