ENA NA HOUBA

The title

The title of the work is the sentence the work carries. In the Syriac branch of Aramaic, houba (ܚܘܒܐ, ḥubbā) names love, and ena na (ܐܢܐ ܐܢܐ) says “I am” — the turn of phrase through which the “I am” sayings of the Peshitta, the Syriac Bible, speak : Ena na nuhrā, “I am the light”.

Ena na houba : I am love. The title does not translate the work : it makes it resound in an older tongue, almost forgotten and yet present — like a melody one has never learned and still recognises, calling back an elsewhere whose name has been lost.

Which love

English has one word where Greek had four, and it is the Greek that says which one is meant. Not erôs, the desire that lacks and wants to take. Not philia, the friendship that chooses its own. Not storgê, the tenderness of blood ties. Agapê : the love that asks nothing in return, that is not a feeling one has, but a state one is.

It is the love of ancient times, the one still resounding down to us in its eternal dimension. Ena na houba does not say “I love” : it says “I am love”.

Notes on the work

ENA NA HOUBA is a new version of I Am Love, released in November 2024, whose choir is that of the Sofia Session Choir. The voice was added to it, and with the voice a new title.

Sixteen minutes and forty-four seconds in a single sweep of joy. The work comes into the world on 23 September 2026, the day of the equinox.

Stellar

Stellar is an Irish singer and composer, based in the south of France. She has been releasing under that name since 2015 — some thirty records and EPs, from the Voices of the Soul EPs with the Ashnaia Project to the album Krystalline in 2023. Several of her records, among them Magdalene Codes and Company of Heaven, were made with Craig Pruess — American composer and producer based in the UK, arranger for Cliff Richard, Sarah Brightman and Massive Attack, author of the score for Bend It Like Beckham.

A thread already ran between the two worlds : Lars Doerwald — LD Elements — made the cover of her first EP in 2015. The cover of ENA NA HOUBA is by the same hand.

She met Yves Ruhlmann in the Jura, in the spring of 2026, through Swiss-French friends ; the work came out of that meeting.

She sang without a score. Her singing is not added to the work : it is its voice.