Jack Quigley looks beyond the scale of the Beirut Port explosion on ‘Wedding In The Sky’
Six years ago, the Beirut Port explosion tore through the Lebanese capital, killing more than 200 people, injuring thousands and forcing hundreds of thousands from their homes.
Numbers that large can be hard to properly take in. On ‘Wedding In The Sky’, Naarm/Melbourne composer Jack Quigley brings the focus back to one life, one relationship and a wedding that never had the chance to happen.
The song honours Sahar Fares, a 24-year-old firefighter and paramedic who was killed while responding to the fire that preceded the explosion on August 4, 2020.
Fares was due to marry her fiancé, Gilbert Karaan, the following year. The title comes from the Arabic blessing عرسك بالسما أحلى — “your wedding is more beautiful in the sky.”
It is an incredibly heavy place for a song to begin, and ‘Wedding In The Sky’ hits hard from the opening moments. But there is also a huge amount of love underpinning it all. Quigley and his collaborators never push the tragedy for effect or make it feel bigger than it needs to be.
The idea began taking shape while Quigley was living in Beirut with filmmaker Naji El Ali in 2023.
As he moved through the city, he saw photographs, banners and makeshift memorials dedicated to those killed in the blast. They were not tucked away or confined to one monument. They were part of the streets and walls around him.
“They were everywhere,” Quigley recalls. “Pictures in grottos and on walls covered Beirut all the way into the city centre at Martyrs’ Square. It was incredibly moving.”
After El Ali told him about Sahar and Gilbert, the pair began working on the idea that eventually became ‘Wedding In The Sky’.
Egyptian vocalist Noha Fekry sings in Lebanese Arabic, moving between quiet, controlled passages and the song’s larger emotional peaks. Her performance is powerful precisely because she never overdoes it.
American-Australian rapper Elf Tranzporter writes from Gilbert’s perspective, trying to make sense of the shock and absence left behind. His restrained delivery lands over a jazz-leaning hip-hop beat, giving the song the feel of a private conversation.
Around them, brass, strings and percussion slowly gather. There is plenty happening in the arrangement, but it never becomes cluttered or pulls focus from Sahar and Gilbert.
Directed by El Ali, the accompanying video brings together original footage and historical images of Beirut. It moves through Martyrs’ Square and a city still carrying the visible weight of August 4. At times, it feels like a love letter. At others, it simply refuses to look away from what happened.
‘Wedding In The Sky’ forms part of Quigley’s Upstream Trilogy, a sprawling 27-track project featuring 52 musicians, eight languages, four continents and 12 studios.
That scale is impressive, but this song works because it does the opposite. It gets smaller. It stays with Sahar, Gilbert and the future they were meant to share.
In doing so, ‘Wedding In The Sky’ makes sure their names do not disappear into the statistics.
Watch ‘Wedding In The Sky’ above and follow Jack Quigley for more from the Upstream Trilogy.
