Master Bandsmen of the Ottoman Empire

This summer I finished a feature article for Saudi Aramco World Magazine on the Mehter Musicians of the Ottoman Empire. Inspired by a book on the subject written by a Boston-based musician, Mehmet Sanlikol, I endeavored to treat this subject in a manner that would appeal to a general audience that didn't have knowledge of Turkish or Middle Eastern music. It was fun to write - took many hours of research and interviews. But amazingly I was able to do it all from Boston because my subjects were all within the greater Boston area. That in itself is a testament to how culturally rich Boston is. That's a cliche perhaps, but it's also true. We are blessed to live in such a rich treasure trove filled with all kinds of artists and thinkers. For more information on Dunya, the group that sponsors a Mehter band in Boston, visit Dunya's website

You can link to my story in Saudi Aramco World here.

I've pasted in my favorite photograph from the article - caption below.

Caption: This young visitor to the Turkish Military Museum’s regular mehter heritage performance in Istanbul might agree with the Prussian soldier who, in the early 1700’s, complained that the mehter band “split the ears with its incredible charivari.”

Here are more Mehter audio links you can listen to and purchase:

1. Taqsim (Improvisation) in Maqam of Bayati: Listen
2. Pesrev in Maqam of Nakriz (processional instrumental): listen
3. Ey Gaziler: Listen
4. Cengi-i-Harbi: Cymbals of War: Link

Enjoy!

First Saudi Feature Film "Wadjda" Reviewed by Telegraph UK

Congratulations to Saudi director Haifaa Al Mansour on her directing the first feature film made in Saudi Arabia. "Wadjda" is about a Saudi girl growing up in conservative Riyadh...who wants a bicycle.

Below is the review of the film by Robbie Collin from the Telegraph in the UK, and a link to the review is here. I hope we get to see the film in the U.S. soon.

Wadjda, the first film to have been entirely filmed within Saudi Arabia, by the nation's first female director, is boundary-pushing cinema for Venice Film Festival 2012, writes Robbie Collin.

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Haifaa Al Mansour and Waad Mohammed in Wadjda, which premiered at Venice Film Festival 2012.  Photo: Tobias Kownatzki / RazorFilm

Dir: Haifaa Al Mansour; starring: Waad Mohammed, Reem Abdullah, Abdullrahman Al Gohani, Sultan Al Assaf. 97 min.

“A woman’s voice reveals her nakedness,” scolds Wadjda’s teacher, as she and a friend run laughing from a Riyadh sidestreet into their school playground. “What if a man had heard you?”

Well, plenty of men will hear her now. Wadjda is the first film to have been entirely filmed within Saudi Arabia, by that country’s first female director, no less. It tells the story of this ten-year-old schoolgirl, and many like her, and it is the best thing I have seen at this year’s Venice International Film Festival so far.

Haifaa Al Mansour’s picture has a kind of neorealist clarity and simplicity that feels like a welcome splash of ice water after the ponderous, muggy fare that has so far been screened in competition for the festival’s Golden Lion award. (Wadjda is showing in the Orrizonti strand, dedicated to new trends in world cinema.)

Like one of the great Italian neorealist films, it centres on a child and a bicycle. All Wadjda wants is a bike so she can race against the little boy who lives next door, but her mother (Reem Abdullah) refuses to buy her one: in Saudi Arabia, little girls do not ride bicycles. After careful consideration of the matter Wadjda cannot see the logic in this, so she takes matters into her own hands and decides to raise the money for a bicycle herself.

Wadjda is perplexed by the Kingdom’s restrictive culture, particularly where women are concerned: it seems incompatible with a child’s logic. Even though she covers herself up in accordance with modesty laws, an elderly man still leers at her openly in the street, and the confusion that flickers across her face speaks volumes.
Waad Mohammed, a 12-year-old born and raised in Riyadh, is utterly disarming in the title role: she strikes the perfect balance between cheek and impudence, and her tomboyish grin lights up the screen.The film largely consists of little vignettes in the home and at school, and while many of them are very funny, we get an acute sense of the little everyday frustrations and burdens that Saudi women have to shoulder.
Al Mansour reveals in the film’s production notes that she often had to direct from her production van via walkie-talkie when filming in more conservative areas, but Wadjda offers the hope that for the next generation of Saudi women, things might be different. Modest as it may look, this is boundary-pushing cinema in all the best ways, and what a thrill it is to hear those boundaries creak.

Beethoven and Ode to Joy Lyrics

I'm writing these days, jamming out an article on music. And it has to do with Beethoven, among about a gazillion other subjects. Writing this one is like trying to stuff an elephant into a pillow case. But it will be worth it.

I just listened to part of the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony Here is a link to a nice Youtube (audio) version. Link to Youtube audio version

And here are the lyrics, from the poem by Friedrich Schiller in 1785. They obviously speak for themselves. (I got them here.)

This symphony is said to be the greatest ever written.

Lyrics in English for "Ode to Joy"
("Ode An Die Freude")
Beethoven's 9th Symphony

O friends, no more these sounds!
Let us sing more cheerful songs,
more full of joy!

 
Joy, bright spark of divinity,
Daughter of Elysium,
Fire-inspired we tread
Thy sanctuary.

Thy magic power re-unites
All that custom has divided,
All men become brothers
Under the sway of thy gentle wings.

Whoever has created
An abiding friendship,
Or has won
A true and loving wife,
All who can call at least one soul theirs,
Join in our song of praise;
But any who cannot must creep tearfully
Away from our circle.

All creatures drink of joy
At nature's breast.
Just and unjust
Alike taste of her gift;

She gave us kisses and the fruit of the vine,
A tried friend to the end.
Even the worm can feel contentment,
And the cherub stands before God!

Gladly, like the heavenly bodies
Which He set on their courses
Through the splendor of the firmament;
Thus, brothers, you should run your race,
As a hero going to conquest.

You millions, I embrace you.
This kiss is for all the world!

Brothers, above the starry canopy
There must dwell a loving Father.

Do you fall in worship, you millions?
World, do you know your creator?

Seek him in the heavens;
Above the stars must He dwell.

A Month of Saudi Launches and Projects

Two novels, a book of poetry, and a film focusing on women in Saudi Arabia are coming to market this month. It's a wealth of new stories and characters. Clearly western audiences are hungry to know more about women in Saudi Arabia.

"Wajda," is the first feature-length film made in Saudi Arabia. It was directed by Haifaa Mansour, a Saudi woman from the Eastern Province. This is also her first feature length film, and is being shown at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. It's about a girl who dreams of owning a green bicycle. Link to a Hollywood Reporter story about Haifaa and her film here.

Saudi poet Nimah Nawwab is currently in the U.S. on a reading tour in conjunction with the launch of her new book of verse in English, CANVAS OF THE SOUL, MYSTICAL POEMS FROM THE HEARTLAND OF ARABIA. Nimah comes from a long line of scholars from the city of Mecca. This is her second book of poems. While her poetry isn't particularly 'about' Saudi women, it's by a Saudi author, so I'm including it here. Her website has information about her book tour. She wrote to me today that she will likely be back in the U.S. to do more readings in the fall. Her website is here.

Two American authors have novels about Saudi Arabia launching this month:

Zoe Ferraris, the author of a popular series of literary mysteries set in Saudi Arabia has her third book KINGDOM OF STRANGERS coming out this month. The previous two, FINDING NOUF, and CITY OF VEILS, have been well received all over the world. I have been to two book discussions of FINDING NOUF and am thrilled to discover how much people learn about a culture from Zoe's books. The murder mystery format draws people right in, and gets them personally involved in Saudi's unusual society as they try to solve the crime. Here is a link to Zoe's latest book on amazon,  and her website is here.

Kim Barnes wrote IN THE KINGDOM OF MEN, set in the Kingdom's Eastern province in the 1960's. The book explores the life of American expatriates working in the Kingdom's oil business. This one sounds interesting too! A link to it on amazon.com and her website is here.

Good luck to all on their projects and books.

Relationship nicknames in Arabic

Over my decades of studying Arabic, living in the Arab world and playing Arab music, I've long been fascinated by the custom that some Arabs have in addressing people with whom they have a particular relationship. A teacher will call his student 'professor,' and a mother will call her son 'Mama.'

Below is a link to a great blog post by "Ginger Beirut" about this practice in Lebanon. While this article focuses the parental version of this practice, I've heard it elsewhere. For instance, a very distinguished musician friend of mine jokingly calls his music student "Maestro." So does the student then refer to his revered teacher as Father of missed notes - Abu Nashaz? Or is this practice just a one way street; is it to be used only by social superiors toward their inferiors?

Who's the daddy here? - great blog post on this practice from Ginger Beirut.

If anyone has insight into this practice, please comment!

Jeddah Diary by Olivia Arthur

When U.K. photographer Olivia Arthur went to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to give a photography workshop at the private women's college, Effat College, she began a photography project that has culminated in her self-published, JEDDAH DIARY.  The UK's Daily Telegraph features it today. The link to the article is here. The text is pasted below. You can see a gallery of the photos in the article link. The link to the website where you can order the book is here

Photo caption by Olivia Arthur: "This was taken on campus at Effat, the college in Jeddah that had just become a university when I was there – it’s women only. The girls are so stylish under their abayas. I must have been the least fashionable woman in Saudi. They despaired of me. They’d say, "OK, Olivia, you’re going to wear some make-up, we’re going to show you how to be feminine."

Olivia Arthur Lifts the Veil on Saudi Arabia
by Lucy Davies

In 2009 the photographer Olivia Arthur travelled to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for what would be the first of three month-long stays. She had joined the prestigious Magnum Photos agency the year before – at 31, she is one of its youngest members – when she was part-way through a series exploring the East/West divide, photographing women in Georgia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Russia and Iran. When the work came to Saudi as part of an exhibition of British and Middle Eastern photographers, Arthur was invited to teach a workshop. It was open only to women, aged from 20 to 50, and cost them nothing to attend.

As the workshop progressed, Arthur became friends with a number of the women, who granted her exceptional access to a world usually tightly sealed not only from Western eyes, but also from the eyes of Saudi men. Jeddah may be relatively more tolerant than the capital, Riyadh, but even so outside the family the sexes remain segregated.

Men cannot see photographs of women they could potentially marry, and cameras are shunned. For Arthur this meant that photographing even in women-only environments required elaborate negotiation. ‘I could have photographed them in their abayas [the black cloak they must wear in public] but I didn’t want just that, I wanted their reality. I asked to go to their houses, their private spaces, but I always said, I’m a professional photographer; I want to publish these pictures, so be as covered as you need to be so that we won’t have a problem.’

Arthur used a little digital camera, the type of camera the women would use to take pictures of each other. ‘We were friends, we were comfortable, but then I’d take pictures and later they’d say, “Please don’t show my face.” It was complicated.’

THE SAND FISH; A Novel from Dubai by Maha Gargash

It took me a while to read THE SAND FISH by Maha Gargash. I was wary of it at first, expecting it to be a tale of woe and disaster that befalls the feisty heroine Noora. But then, I was drawn in by the beauty that the author painted on every page with her stark and lustrous sentences. I've posted my five star reviews over on Goodreads and Amazon, and now, will share my thoughts here. I do recommend this book to anyone who's interested in Arabian culture, especially the 'old days' before the urbanization from oil wealth. Until the 1930's, the Arabian Gulf was the center of the world's pearling industry. Every year, for six months out of the year, men would go out on wooden dhows and would dive (without scuba gear) over pearl beds, hauling up oysters one basket at at time. A brutal way of life, it crippled and blinded the divers, but made the captains rich. The advent of the cultured pearl was the death knell for the pearl industry. And it is just as well, given the hardship and physical damage it caused to generations.

THE SAND FISH takes place during this period, but I didn't feel I was getting a history lesson as I read. Set at a time when the economy and whole social structure was in flux, the 1950's, Gargash tells a tale of a young feisty country girl who ends up marrying a wealthy pearling merchant and captain. In the Goodreads reviews, some of the Arab readers are upset with Gargash for including a controversial plot twist they say is 'unbelievable', implying it could never happen. To that, I say, pish tosh. Gargash interviewed many elderly women from the old days. I bet that twist came from one of her informants. Also, truth is always stranger than fiction. Lastly, people don't write fiction to represent a culture, they do it to tell a story. So below is my review.  I recommend this book.

Maha Gargash's debut novel, THE SAND FISH is a poignant tale of a young girl growing up in the mountains in the United Arab Emirates (near Dubai), who eventually moves to the city and has to find her way in the complex world of her husband's family. But it's so much more than that. Gargash has captured, in her protagonist's story, the vanishing of an old way of life and the dawn of a new era in Dubai. The story takes place as the last of the big annual pearl dives set out, when the oil era was beginning. It's a marvelous novel, deftly told, with language at once rich and stark. The research Gargash undertook to write the book shows in the depth of every aspect of the story. Yet it is not weighted down with ethnographic information. The details inform and seem to lift the plot along. It is like the slightest desert breeze blowing at dawn: understated, intoxicating, and true. I salute the author for this work. She's excelled in every aspect of it: - character, plot, style, voice and setting. A hearty mabruk (congratulations) to the author. I hope she will write more.