Showing posts with label Syria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Syria. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Syrian Pianist Performs in Washington, Syrian Police Beat His Parents in Syria
CNN
Syrian musician blames security forces for his parents' beating
By Tom Watkins, CNN
July 30, 2011 7:53 a.m. EDT
(CNN) -- Malek Jandali, a pianist who performed last week at a rally in Washington in support of the Syrian opposition, blamed his work for what he said was an attack Thursday night by government security forces on his parents.
The father, Dr. Mamoun Jandali, 73, was carrying groceries from his car to his home in Homs when a man grabbed him from behind and asked him to help care for someone who had been injured, Jandali told CNN Friday in a telephone interview from Orlando, Florida.
When the doctor agreed to do so, the man spoke into his cell phone and said to bring the patient. Moments later, two other men showed up unaccompanied by any patient. They handcuffed the doctor, covered his mouth and nose with duct tape, then took him upstairs, Jandali said. The musician's 66-year-old mother, Linah, was in bed.
"All of a sudden, she finds two men attacking her while the guy was holding my dad and ordering the other two to beat my mom in the head and eyes," Jandali said. "My dad, he couldn't do anything other than watch this atrocity."
The three men broke his mother's teeth and beat his father, then locked them both in their bathroom and ransacked the house, their son said. After the attackers had departed, the father, who had held on to his cell phone throughout the ordeal, called relatives. He had to call security forces to remove his handcuffs.
The doctor then sewed shut a cut in his wife's face, said Jandali.
Jandali said his performance in Washington had provoked the attack. During his mother's beating, "they were telling her that ... 'we're going to teach you how to raise your son.'"
Read the full story HERE.
Syrian musician blames security forces for his parents' beating
By Tom Watkins, CNN
July 30, 2011 7:53 a.m. EDT
(CNN) -- Malek Jandali, a pianist who performed last week at a rally in Washington in support of the Syrian opposition, blamed his work for what he said was an attack Thursday night by government security forces on his parents.
The father, Dr. Mamoun Jandali, 73, was carrying groceries from his car to his home in Homs when a man grabbed him from behind and asked him to help care for someone who had been injured, Jandali told CNN Friday in a telephone interview from Orlando, Florida.
When the doctor agreed to do so, the man spoke into his cell phone and said to bring the patient. Moments later, two other men showed up unaccompanied by any patient. They handcuffed the doctor, covered his mouth and nose with duct tape, then took him upstairs, Jandali said. The musician's 66-year-old mother, Linah, was in bed.
"All of a sudden, she finds two men attacking her while the guy was holding my dad and ordering the other two to beat my mom in the head and eyes," Jandali said. "My dad, he couldn't do anything other than watch this atrocity."
The three men broke his mother's teeth and beat his father, then locked them both in their bathroom and ransacked the house, their son said. After the attackers had departed, the father, who had held on to his cell phone throughout the ordeal, called relatives. He had to call security forces to remove his handcuffs.
The doctor then sewed shut a cut in his wife's face, said Jandali.
Jandali said his performance in Washington had provoked the attack. During his mother's beating, "they were telling her that ... 'we're going to teach you how to raise your son.'"
Read the full story HERE.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Meredith Monk in Syria
Yahoo Music News
Pioneering U.S. singer enthralls Syrian students
04/20/2008 5:00 PM, Reuters
Avant-garde musician and performance artist Meredith Monk enthralled Syrian students on Monday with a lesson on vocal and choreographic techniques in a rare cultural exchange between the two countries.
Monk, an innovative singer, composer, filmmaker and choreographer, gave a workshop at the national conservatoire before a concert in Damascus on Monday with vocalists Theo Blackman and Katie Geissinger.
Washington has imposed sanctions on Syria over its support for anti-U.S. groups in the Middle East.
Politics featured little as Monk and Geissinger gave Syrian singers, dancers and actors lessons in choreography, vocal techniques and how to construct complex singing forms.
"Everybody was nervous and little by little we spoke the same language. I shared some of the discoveries I have made in very direct way. It will help people experience the concert with more knowledge," Monk told Reuters.
"If we come and just perform we will never find out where Syrian artists are coming from and what they know."
Monk was invited by the Syrian government as part of performances to celebrate Damascus as the 2008 capital of Arab culture.
The last U.S. group to perform in Syria was the jazzy Freddie Bryant and Kaleidoscope in 2004.
"Music is fundamental as breathing. It speaks to any body. This is why I am here. The politics does not matter," Monk said.
One of Monk's favorite singers is the Arab diva Umm Kalthoum, who died in 1975. Like Monk, Umm Kalthoum stuck rigorously to traditional forms of music and singing.
Monk said strict practice and adherence to musical forms did not prevent improvisation even if the text, scale and melody hardly changed.
"A piece I sang in 1978 and I sing now is the same, but you will also hear that I have room to play. It is not that different from Arabic music. Umm Kalthoum took one text and did it different ways," she said.
Monk's performance on Monday at the Opera House will span work from her 43-year career, including unaccompanied solo pieces and others with piano and violin.
"I always want to be risky, working on something that I don't know rather than something I do now," she said.
Syrian students gave Monk an enthusiastic reception, although her techniques differed from traditional methods taught at the conservatoire, where classes are influenced by Communist era curricula from Eastern Europe.
"Her whole art is different. The exercises she gave we would not have learned in a year," actress Fatina Laila said.
(Editing by Andrew Dobbie)
Pioneering U.S. singer enthralls Syrian students
04/20/2008 5:00 PM, Reuters
Avant-garde musician and performance artist Meredith Monk enthralled Syrian students on Monday with a lesson on vocal and choreographic techniques in a rare cultural exchange between the two countries.
Monk, an innovative singer, composer, filmmaker and choreographer, gave a workshop at the national conservatoire before a concert in Damascus on Monday with vocalists Theo Blackman and Katie Geissinger.
Washington has imposed sanctions on Syria over its support for anti-U.S. groups in the Middle East.
Politics featured little as Monk and Geissinger gave Syrian singers, dancers and actors lessons in choreography, vocal techniques and how to construct complex singing forms.
"Everybody was nervous and little by little we spoke the same language. I shared some of the discoveries I have made in very direct way. It will help people experience the concert with more knowledge," Monk told Reuters.
"If we come and just perform we will never find out where Syrian artists are coming from and what they know."
Monk was invited by the Syrian government as part of performances to celebrate Damascus as the 2008 capital of Arab culture.
The last U.S. group to perform in Syria was the jazzy Freddie Bryant and Kaleidoscope in 2004.
"Music is fundamental as breathing. It speaks to any body. This is why I am here. The politics does not matter," Monk said.
One of Monk's favorite singers is the Arab diva Umm Kalthoum, who died in 1975. Like Monk, Umm Kalthoum stuck rigorously to traditional forms of music and singing.
Monk said strict practice and adherence to musical forms did not prevent improvisation even if the text, scale and melody hardly changed.
"A piece I sang in 1978 and I sing now is the same, but you will also hear that I have room to play. It is not that different from Arabic music. Umm Kalthoum took one text and did it different ways," she said.
Monk's performance on Monday at the Opera House will span work from her 43-year career, including unaccompanied solo pieces and others with piano and violin.
"I always want to be risky, working on something that I don't know rather than something I do now," she said.
Syrian students gave Monk an enthusiastic reception, although her techniques differed from traditional methods taught at the conservatoire, where classes are influenced by Communist era curricula from Eastern Europe.
"Her whole art is different. The exercises she gave we would not have learned in a year," actress Fatina Laila said.
(Editing by Andrew Dobbie)
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