Night of music celebrates power of cultural resilience in region

AMMAN — Foreign officials and music fans on Monday enjoyed a night of music held to celebrate the power of culture in building communities’ resilience and social cohesion.

Organised by the European Union National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC) on behalf of the EU delegation, “Turath: A musical night” witnessed the performances of Syrian troupe Salateen Al Tarab and young aspiring artists members of Turning Tables (TT).

“We are really proud to see such a show being organised to shed light on the cultural aspect of the Syrian crisis, showing the positive artistic dimension stemming from an otherwise tragic phenomenon,” head of cooperation at the EU delegation in Jordan Ibrahim Laafia told The Jordan Times.

Held a week ahead of the second Brussels Conference on Syria, scheduled on April 24-25, the show aimed to highlight the cultural resilience amidst the regional turmoil, and the positive impact it had on the lives of refugees and host communities.

 “Music is an incredible means that can be used to reflect on individuals and communities’ lives, and to convey the message that, in spite of their differences, all people have comon denominators that federates them,” said Martin Fernando Jakobsen, founder of TT, an organisation aimed at empowering marginalised youth through creative activities.

“The young people of TT carry with them an extremely rich culture, which has helped them build resilience in the face of chaos and this is what our work seeks to showcase,” he told The Jordan Times at the event, noting that “it doesn’t matter to us how good these kids are when they join, it is rather about the process of using creative means to induce self reflection and social interaction”.

Zaid, a Syrian refugee, opened the concert with a powerful solo interpretation using the Persian ney (an end-blown flute prominently used in Middle Eastern music), while 19-year-old Alaa' moved the audience with an a cappella song. 

They were followed by 19-year-old guitarist and singer Omar, from Iraq.

Started in 2010 in Jordan, TT “provides excluded youth with the means to voice their travesties and visions of a better tomorrow in a non-violent manner”, according to its founder.

“Through our various activities, we seek to create individual empowerment and raise collective awareness to instigate change in the community, allowing young people to express their grievances, hopes and dreams in music and film,” he explained, adding: “we strive to provide these youth with new skills and spaces to share their experiences in order to enhance their resilience and prevent negative coping mechanisms.”

The organisation has been working with young talents from Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Palestine, among other countries, mobilising them around a common goal to enhance their sense of belonging to the community.

Speaking at the event, French Ambassador to Jordan David Bertolotti praised a “great initiative” that “showed for once the bright side of the refugee crisis, where culture unites youth, whether from the local communities or from war-torn countries”.

"Turning Tables did a great job empowering those young and talented people: the show they produced was really moving," he told The Jordan Times.

The concert continued with a performance by Salateen Al Tarab, a Syrian troupe formed in Syria in 1992 and reunited in Jordan after the civil war began.

Playing in the authentic Shami dress composed of kanzab, shawl and turboch, the musicians seek to “give spectators a sense of the old, authentic Arabic character,” according to founder and manager of the group Mostafa Abdel Razzaq Al Saghir.

The band performs the Tarab of Aleppo and Almowashahat while also offering Egyptian, Iraqi, Jordanian and Lebanese Tarab. “We strive to preserve a heritage that has become too rare nowadays but still echoes in many people in our audience,” he said.

The concert also witnessed the recitation of a poem by Nizar Qabbani, noted Syrian poet and diplomat by EU Ambassador to Jordan Andrea Matteo Fontana.

The night also included the world premiere of Turning Tables' music video "A Better Tomorrow" produced in partnership with EUNIC and EU for the upcoming Brussels conference. 

“EUNIC Jordan, which is one of the 100 clusters of this global network, has truly established itself as of model of bringing European cultural policies to partner countries, helping the EU to reflect its cultural dimension in cooperation with countries like Jordan,” Laffia concluded, praising a “very successful initiative to convey the regional cultural angle to the upcoming conference”.