Finding healing in a silent prayer

When Sydney composer Anna Hirst Friedman sat down to write her response to October 7, she did not plan a song cycle. But one piece became two, then ten, and now, reimagined for the 2026 Sydney Jewish Writers Festival with an element of drama and comedy, Amidah – A Silent Prayer has become her most personal work to date.

“It’s a bold thing to write about the horrors of Oct 7th. It doesn’t come easy for me as an artist,” Hirst Friedman told The AJN. “Writing this work has allowed me to grieve. In a quiet space with my piano and the formation of the music I write from the heart.”

The ten core pieces open with a call for peace and end with a reimagining of a peaceful future. In between, the work confronts the October 7 massacre, the hostage crisis, the suffering of children in conflict zones, antisemitism in Australia and the firebombing of the Adass Synagogue.

“I speak a lot about children in my work,” Hirst Friedman said. “‘Lullaby of Grief’ is a homage to the suffering felt by the families of the hostages.” Her most challenging piece, ‘The Massacre’, opens with the word “Rape” repeated by a male voice. After writing it, she discovered Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 13, Babi Yar. “Hearing this, I realised that I wasn’t alone as a composer in dealing with this heavy subject,” she said.

“The entire work has layers of complexities, moving between the worlds of physical and emotional grief and suffering to find glimmers of hope and healing.”