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With a growing Lebanese population around 10th and Federal streets, and pockets of Arabs in the North and Northeast, Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture is using the universal language of music to bridge the potential gap between younger generations and the understanding of countries such as Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
The communications lesson hit a high note May 19 at Girard Academic Music Program, 22nd and Ritner streets, with three jazz bands, a choir, as well as Al-Bustan’s percussion and music ensembles, performing classical and jazz fusion Arabic music for an audience that may have been hearing the cultural strains for the very first time.
Playing the oud, which is similar to the lute, and the violin since he was a boy in Israel, renowned Palestinian-American composer Simon Shaheen tours the world solo and with two bands, in addition to promoting Arab music. One of his most invested interests is mentoring students through the nonprofit Al-Bustan, which is based in Southwest.
"Simon was trying to bring in elements of Arabic classical music and jazz," said Hanna Khoury, director and violinist of the Al-Bustan ensemble of adults and youths of strings, percussion and singers including the nonprofit’s founder Hazami Sayed. "We’re really presenting classical Arabic in its most traditional form."
Arab classical music differs from Western classical in that harmonies are dominant in the latter while each instrument plays the same melodic line in the former, Khoury, who recorded the violin solo for the pop song "Beautiful Liar" by Beyonce and Shakira, said.
"You will have this organized chaos that is happening," the Syria native who resides in Center City added.
Arabic music uses a different tuning system and utilizes quarter tones, or notes in between traditional ones, but not all countries recognize the same quarter tones. A quarter tone in Turkey is usually higher than one in Egypt, Khoury said.
During a GAMP master class earlier this year, Shaheen explained the concept to the students by giving them a visual via a piano: "Like when you have neighboring keys, white and black. OK, so imagine that between them there is another red key that when you press it, it gives you the midway sound between the white and the black."
Many of the performers last week — Penn Charter School Jazz Band, Kimmel Center Youth Jazz Ensemble, Pennsylvania Girlchoir and the GAMP High School Jazz Band — were new to this style of music. Along with the Al-Bustan Music Ensemble, the Al-Bustan Percussion Ensemble, led by Hafez El Ali Kotain, was formed by the nonprofit and had few rehearsals to learn the Arab-inspired numbers. Made up of six boys and teens from area schools, including GAMP freshman Shakoor Sanders, 16, and Sayed’s sons, 13-year-old Mazin and 10-year-old Jad Blaik playing dufs, or Moroccan drums, the percussionists performed arrangements where they mimicked their director and one the boys wrote themselves.
To end the program, GAMP took on "Blue Flame," a Shaheen composition the Kimmel Center Youth Jazz Ensemble also performed that night.
"What we really appreciated about Mr. Shaheen was that he said, ‘the music is supposed to be molded and played for your expression’ and he appreciated the fact that we would take the arrangements that we heard and do a different instrumentation for a big band or other ensembles utilizing instruments that weren’t necessarily always traditionally used in the music," GAMP High School Jazz Band Director Vincent Rutlandt said to the audience.
GAMP’s "Blue Flame" featured Andrew Lawson on soprano saxophone. The junior learned from the composer during January master classes and had fun incorporating Arab and Hindu scales into his solo.
"[Shaheen] told me personally that I could make it [as a musician] just by listening," the resident of 23rd and Wolf streets said.
Founded in 2002, Al-Bustan — "the garden" in Arabic — has educated youths in schools and musical ensembles, like the ones that performed at the GAMP concert, throughout the city. Founder Sayed, who immigrated to America as a college freshman, grew up in Kuwait and is of Lebanese and Egyptian descent, but considers herself "Pan-Arab." She began the nonprofit as a summer camp for her sons to learn about their heritage. It has grown into weekend programs, as well as in-school and after-school programs.
"[Our goal is] to promote knowledge and understanding and appreciation of the Arab language, culture, history and people and to promote a cross-cultural understanding so Arabs and non-Arabs can learn from each other — particularly youth," the West Philadelphia resident said.
The concert at GAMP capped a series of master classes with Shaheen, but the process of putting the composer, students and music together was more than a year in the making. When Sayed approached Shaheen, he had not heard of Al-Bustan but agreed to mentor local musicians and ensembles through the program.
"It was challenge," Sayed said of launching the mentoring program. "I didn’t know if we could pull it off in the beginning. It was daunting."
After New Yorker Shaheen met with 100 local teachers and musicians at the Kimmel Center in November for a workshop, he returned for master classes. There, he mentored more than 80 young musicians from six ensembles, including GAMP High School Jazz Band and Settlement Music School Jazz Band, in January that prepared works to perform for him. All of the groups, minus Settlement, performed at last week’s "Evening of Arab Music."
Shaheen, who was recording and couldn’t make the trip, said via telephone to the concert audience, "I just want to say I’m happy for this occasion. The young musicians I remember work very hard. They showed commitment and interest."
The night, which opened many up to a new form of music, brought out people of all ages, playing or singing Arabic music for the first time, Sayed said.
"I thought it was a beautiful evening," she added. "It just brought together so many kids of diverse backgrounds under one roof."
The music served as a learning experience and opened the eyes of those in a younger generation, including Lawson, who compared what he heard and played to Western jazz but with a "new outlook."
"I loved it and I hope we can do this again because it was really fun," he said.
