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.”

Two additional works form what Hirst Friedman calls her “After” series. ‘Shiri & The Boys’ responds to the hostage story that still moves her to tears. ‘December 14th Bondi’, composed quickly around a repetitive piano motif echoed by violin, reflects an event she says she is still processing. It opens with a male voice singing “Gunned Down At A Festival”, the same words used in the second half of the October 7 piece.

“This is a very eerie moment in the entire piece,” Hirst Friedman said.

“When I play this I find I can be kinder to myself, as it allows a reflective moment to understand the pain of the events that unfolded,” she said.

“I don’t think my emotions have evolved, they are my emotions and they come up. What the music does is gives me an opportunity to sit with them and with the stories. A reflective moment. Like lighting a candle for those who have passed.”

For this second edition, Hirst Friedman has expanded the work well beyond music.

Artist Estelle Rozinski contributes projected artwork drawn from her own creative response to October 7.

“Her and I were working in parallel on our own creative responses which I only discovered months later,” Hirst Friedman said. “Her artwork is very poignant and significant to me.”

Comedian and performer Joanna Weinberg joins the cast as Hepzibah The Clown, a character that emerged when Hirst Friedman initially asked Weinberg to write a monologue for the piece.

“She came back to me with Hepzibah The Clown and I said absolutely yes,” Hirst Friedman said. “Clowns are important resources for warzones and hospitals as they break the cycle of grief and pain and allow for relief and laughter. I feel like Hepzibah was always there in the work, and I was waiting for the right moment for her to become part of it.”

For Weinberg, the role of humour in the work is grounded in something instinctive.

“Laughter provides relief from grief because it arises directly from the body’s attempt to regulate overwhelm,” she told The AJN. “Words rely on conscious processing but laughter bypasses language and reflects the brain’s effort to cope.”

She said that during grief, the emotional centre of the brain is highly activated, flooding people with sadness, fear and anxiety.

“Laughter engages regulatory regions like the prefrontal cortex, helping to restore balance and prevent emotional overload,” Weinberg said. “Laughter is not a denial of grief but a complementary response that allows a person to endure it.”

Hirst Friedman herself takes the stage as the Pain Statue, a dramatic figure who connects with the clown in the work’s closing moments.

The ninth piece, ‘Shattering: The Broken Shards’, draws on kabbalistic teachings about repairing what has been broken.

“The teachings tell us that part of our repairing is bringing together the shards one at a time to be put back together,” Hirst Friedman said. “‘Time passes by’ are the last three words I use in the piece. Those words were my way of saying that over time we heal.”

“Part of my resilience is drawn from my community as we have grieved, laughed, prayed, cried, celebrated, remembered and debated together,” she said.

For Hirst Friedman, that communal thread runs through every note.

“Each piece has a unique voice, whether it’s the voice of the hostages, the families waiting for them, remembering the dead, or reflecting on the suffering of children in warzones,” she said. “The work speaks to us and the storyline is important to me because it keeps the voices alive.”

Amidah – A Silent Prayer is on August 5. For tickets: events.humanitix.com/amidah-a-silent-prayer-9mruht5q