Syrian Music Lives
This Project aims, among other things, at preserving the great momentum that has been generated and gained in Syrian music life during the recent years, lest the current circumstances of the country lead to its loss, through:
- creating a permanent link between Syrian musicians, inside and outside Syria, to exchange experiences beyond the current geographical, political and soci
al rifts;
- making available written and audiovisual information about the latest news, activities and creative work of Syrian musicians, including forum participations, concerts, the release of new albums, articles by and about them, interviews, etc; and
- informing the public at large about Syrian living music and the musical life of Syria.
الموسيقى السورية حية
مشروع يهدف، في جملة ما يهدف إليه، إلى الحفاظ على الزخم الكبير الذي تولد في الحراك الموسيقي السوري إبان السنوات الأخيرة، لئلا تؤدي ظروف البلد الحالية القاسية إلى تغييبه وفقدانه، وذلك عبر:
- عقد صلة مستمرة بين الموسيقيين السوريين، داخل سوريا وخارجها، لتبادل الخبرات فيما يتعدى الصدوع الجغرافية والسياسية والاجتماعية الحالية.
- الاطلاع على آخر أخبار الموسيقيين السوريين ونشاطاتهم وإبداعاتهم، من ملتقيات وحفلات وصدور ألبومات جديدة ومقالات لهم وعنهم ومقابلات معهم إلخ، وذلك بتوفير مواد مقروءة ومسموعة ومرئية متعلقة بذلك.
- تعريف الجمهور الواسع بالموسيقى السورية الحية وبالحياة الموسيقية السورية. Syrian Music Lives
What
Syria, always at the crossroads of world civilizations, owns a unique cultural heritage that maintains respect for musical forms stretching back thousands of years, while enthusiastically accepting and adapting new musical possibilities from cultures worldwide. The Syrian Music Lives is a two-phase project aiming, in Phase One, at making Syrian music alive in the media through a professional website and an online social media network that can reach wide international audiences and professional music makers and foundations, and, in Phase Two, at planning and organizing oriental music concerts that present modern Syrian as well as Oriental composers, held in association with world festivals and universities which have shown interest in the Project. Why
The tragic events still unfolding in Syria have inflicted untold damage on its people and destroyed the fabric of society, bringing into question its national identity and fomenting ethnic and religious hatred in a land whose people have heretofore celebrated diversity. In the face of such pressures, music can serve three main purposes: to remind all Syrian people of their shared heritage and identity, to serve as a focus of hope for a positive future and to provide Syria’s musicians with a voice by which to share their love of their country and to make an active contribution toward healing its wounds. The project also hopes to raise awareness and respect for Syria’s culture and people among world audiences and to gain wider visibility for talented Syrian artists who are unknown outside their homeland. Especially for those people who don’t know much about our country, we hope the opportunity to experience Syrian music, from the archaic to the modern, will give them a new appreciation for the complexity and beauty of our heritage and remind them of how much humanity holds in common. Thus, it is hoped the Project will provide new insights into the capability of web outlets, modern social media platforms and live performances to sustain the cultural presence of a country under siege. It will also test the ability of music and culture to provide a safe harbor and to project a national identity for all Syrians based on a common heritage that transcends current political strife. How
Phase One of the Project will set up a professionally developed website with information streams adapted to professional music makers, foundations and the wider international audience, a YouTube channel containing archived recordings from concerts and festivals throughout the last decade, a page dedicated to posting materials from the archives and encouraging discussion in both Arabic and English and a Twitter account to promote the other pages, share links and photos and alert users to live events. These online assets will, as appropriate, provide access to live recordings, to conference papers and discussions by world ranking scholars of ethnomusicology, to bios of Syrian musicians, to historical facts about music and culture in Syria and the surrounding region. The social media assets will be used to project a daily, immediate access to the living fabric of Syria’s still vibrant cultural life. All assets will be cross-promoting so that no matter the portal through which a user enters, the entire network of information and conversation will be easily available. Phase Two of the Project will move beyond online presentation, to organize a series of concerts and mini-concerts in venues throughout Europe and elsewhere. In this way, the tradition of live Syrian music will be kept current until it becomes possible to hold such events in Syria once more. The concerts will be augmented by interviews with the performing artists and with respected scholars of ethnomusicology and culture, many of whom participated in past fora in Syria. The Project team has organized dozens of concerts in Syria stressing the fact of coexistence and respect. Many musicians incarnate these goals: the fact that most Syrian bands are made up of members from different communities and religious backgrounds provides a living example of tolerance for diversity and helps to stress unity in the minds of viewers and listeners. In previous festivals the Project team invited Syria’s neighboring countries to participate through the presence of artists and scholars, highlighting the region’s common ground. The holding of similar events in the future will certainly provide maximum exposure for such ideas and will show our common cultural and musical heritage, ancient and contemporary. Working in music projects with musicians from neighboring countries, the Muslim world and the West will bring knowledge and new possibilities. Above all, working together in high visibility projects such as we are planning will necessarily foster cultural understanding and coexistence with these countries and in general as well. The fact that we share these goals with several international foundations is sufficient reason to cooperate on certain projects. We hope our project will provide hope and common identity to the people of Syria who have seen everything taken from them in the past two years. We also hope that the project will confirm, internationally, a positive picture of a living and vibrant Syrian culture and heritage to offset the very grim news from our homeland. We believe the continued interaction of Syrian and international musicians, artists and scholars will help to prevent the Syrian people from being isolated and will ease the transition to the more normal times which we hope are coming to our country in the near future.
