December 7, 2015 | by David Patrick Stearns

“…West met East on a lofty plateau. A fugue, something associated with cerebral moments in J.S. Bach, unfolded with customary correctness but in a thoroughly Arabic melody.

The piece was Of Nights and Solace: Fantasia on Andalusian Muwashshah Poetry by Syrian-born, Philadelphia-based composer Kinan Abou-afach, heard in its world premiere at Bryn Mawr College’s Goodhart Hall, and was, to these ears, the moment when these two musical worlds came together on a new level. With microtonal Arabic scales, musical possibilities multiplied. The 12-tone western scales do good services, but are often engaged in the art of implying something beyond themselves. With 24 Arabic tones, implication isn’t so necessary…”

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December 3, 2015 | by David Patrick Stearns

The music isn’t likely to sound like anything most Americans have heard: The polarities between Arab and Western music, both obvious and subtle, are such that their fusion in this Saturday’s concert, Words Adorned: Andalusian Poetry and Music, at Bryn Mawr College might seem impossible. Then it becomes perfectly doable.

“It’s supposed to blend the sounds of this pluralistic, cosmopolitan city,” said Hanna Khoury, music director of Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture Music Program, which instigated the year-in-the-planning concert with the Crossing choir in works by two Syrian-born composers.

The commissions would seem to be a conscious East-West meeting of the minds, but they’re more a matter of tapping what is already out there but perhaps hasn’t been asked for. Works featured on Abou-afach’s website gravitate toward one musical camp or the other, the Arab works sounding Arab, indeed, and the forays into American jazz sounding authentically American. That doesn’t mean the middle ground represented by works on the Words Adorned concert were a stretch for them.

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December 3, 2015 | by Tasnim Qutait, Arab Hyphen: Arab Arts and Literature

Blogger Tasnim Qutait interviews Executive Director Hazami Sayed, asking her about the Words Adorned project, the work accomplished over the past decade, and what the future holds for Al-Bustan.

Question: There is a pervasive rhetoric of nostalgia around the “golden age” of Andalusia which sets this idealized time against the present. For example Lebanese novelist Hanan Al Shaykh once noted that “we Arabs today have no connections with the Arabs of Andalusia” and then asked “why is it that we didn’t complete our cultural journey and how is it that we have ended up today in the very worst of times?” The melancholy look back to this Golden Age characterizes many adaptations and renditions of the muwashshahat. How would you situate the Adorned Words project in relation to these discourses?

Yes, there is indeed a nostalgic view of Al-Andalus, a longing for the Golden Age of Muslims/Arabs, an era that people keep yearning back to for many reasons. They are crying on the ruins of something great that happened and will never happen again, or they are evoking these great times with the hope they will come back. Either way we engage with the memory of Al-Andalus — it “now belongs to the landscape of the poem,” as Dr. Huda Fakhreddine noted in her lecture as part of our Words Adorned event series. Dr. Fakhreddine added that Al-Andalus has a special place in Arab history as the intersection point of contrasting ideas; such as East and West, or tradition and innovation—the latter visible in muwashshat’s simultaneous embrace of and breaking away from the traditional Arab qasida.

We were certainly aware of all these associations when we conceived of the project, and were intrigued to revisit this time period from a contemporary perspective — to revive the poetic tradition of Andalusian muwashshahat, not simply recreating history, but rather re-interpreting it in the present day, showcasing the development of Arab musical tradition (into the modern-day takht) and Western musical tradition (into orchestra and choir). The project brings together these two manifestations of Arab and Western music in a dynamic and contemporary way. It is an example of how our work is grounded in tradition, though not limited by it. Our view of cultural production is that of a dynamic process, continually produced in relation to myriad influences, rather than a static set of traditions and values handed down from generation to generation. Through our work we invite participants to produce new cultural forms that incorporate and transform the world around them.

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November 21, 2015 | by Rob Weisberg

Rob Weisberg of WFMU-FM “Transpacific Sound Paradise” interviews Music Director Hanna Khoury who samples a few classics in the Arab music repertoire, speaks about Western music and the Arab takht, highlights Al-Bustan’s programs, elaborates on the Words Adorned project, and reflects on his life.

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Winter 2015 | by David Patrick Stearns

Though planned for years, the Dec. 5th concert by The Crossing and Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture’s Takht Ensemble at Bryn Mawr College presents new music by Syrian composers right at a time when their homeland is in civil war. However, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s David Patrick Stearns reports that the music isn’t about current strife, but earlier, more peaceful times.

David Patrick Stearns: That’s Hanna Khoury, music director of Al Bustan Seeds of Culture, which commissioned composers Kareem Roustom and Kinan Abou-afach to write choral works based on Andalusian poetry, some of it dating back to the 11th century. For Kinan Abou-afach, who has lived in Philadelphia for five years, writing Of Nights and Solace was mostly about meditations on love.

Kinan Abou-afach:  For me, this was really taking a break of what’s happening in Syria. I tried my best not to be influenced by the amount destruction and death that is happening there. This was my vacation.

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Fall 2015 | by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage 

The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage speaks to Hazami Sayed, the executive director of Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture in advance of the organization’s culminating concert for the Words Adorned: Andalusian Poetry and Music on December 5. The concert will bring together the Al-Bustan Takht Ensemble, The Crossing chamber choir, and renowned vocalist Dalal Abu Amneh to premiere two compositions by Arab-American composers Kareem Roustom and 2013 Pew Fellow Kinan Abou-afach, inspired by Andalusian poetry. Hazami talks with us about re-interpreting Arab musical traditions for contemporary Western audiences, the role of the arts in raising awareness about Arab culture and strengthening cross-cultural understanding, and more.

Q: On December 5, you’ll present the culminating concert for the multimedia project Words Adorned. How important is collaboration to your organization, and what type of impact does it have?

Words Adorned—our largest and most multi-faceted initiative to date—is gratifying on many fronts, especially with regards to our collaboration with The Crossing. Conductor Donald Nally has delved into learning Kareem Roustom’s and Kinan Abou-afach’s compositions with eagerness and great interest, noting how rewarding it would be to have these pieces performed at college campuses around the country.

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Five Questions for Al-Bustan’s Executive Director Hazami Sayed

Summer 2015 | by Stay Thirsty Magazine

About the Words Adorned project…

This project is groundbreaking on a number of levels – most significantly it revives the poetic tradition of Andalusian muwashshahat, not simply recreating history, but rather re-interpreting it in the present day, showcasing the development of Arab musical tradition (into the modern-day takht) and Western musical tradition (into orchestra and choir). The program brings together these two manifestations of Arab and Western music in a dynamic and contemporary way.

The project will continue beyond the concert performance with a studio recording of the new works, and that CD will be part of a complete set of resources readily accessible for any choral directors around the country interested in presenting contemporary choral music in Arabic. We envision this project as an example of the type of innovative artistic work that Al-Bustan will continue developing, projects with local roots that have national and international reach.

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