A symphony for Syria

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 4 July 2016

⏱️ 50 minutes

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Summary

A symphony for Syria is the story of how 50 Syrian musicians beat the odds to find their way to Holland to perform together. The Orchestra of Syrian Musicians first played with British songwriter Damon Albarn in 2008. Since then, a civil war has divided their country and forced many to rethink many aspects of their lives. Some have decided to live in Europe whilst others have stayed in Syria and continued to try and perform even as their compatriots have died and lost their homes around them. In a symphony for Syria, Amy Zayed explores their lives through music in Syria and their newly adopted countries. And it puts their music in a rich tradition of Syrian performances dating back three thousand years. We share their emotions as Damon Albarn and Africa Express attempt to reunite his old friends in Amsterdam. Can all the members make it to Holland? Is there time to get the music together? And we follow their first concert and what they hope will be an enthusiastic and emotional reception from a European audience as they attempt to persuade them that Syria is not just about war but amazing musical culture as well.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is a BBC podcast.
0:02.3	You can get all our podcasts and our terms of use
0:04.9	at BBCworldservice.com slash podcasts. The Career Theatre in Amsterdam.
0:15.0	Theatre in Amsterdam.
0:18.0	Tonight in this beautiful ornate venue the audience will witness something few will have seen and heard before.
0:32.0	A choir and orchestra of 50 musicians from all over Syria have come together against great odds to see and play their hearts out.
0:54.0	For this moment, actually, I'm very, very happy to meet my friend and make music together and I hope we can do very nice concert.
1:00.0	As a Syrian, I get a bit frustrated. People don't know simply about the beautiful face this side of Syria.
1:04.0	We're not just a country full of war and planes attacking.
1:11.0	It's a very deep old ancient culture.
1:15.0	This is a huge amount of music geniusness.
1:21.0	Musical genius.
1:24.0	I hope we can make people really happy and make people really knows our music and our culture and our country.
1:37.0	The musicians playing tonight are current and former members of the Syrian National Orchestra for Arabic Music.
1:46.0	Its origins are in an orchestra founded in 1990 by the Syrian Ministry of Culture. Tonight's concert and our program, The Symphony for Syria, has been
1:56.4	inspired by British songwriter and producer Damon Arbonne. Famous as a Western rock musician, he has a long-standing interest in Arabic music.
2:06.0	It's actually a very long love affair.
2:08.0	I mean my father went to Iraq in 1974 to work.
2:12.0	My dad wrote two kind of amazing books in the 70s dedicated to Islamic
2:17.5	pattern and the philosophy behind it. So there's always been a very strong kind of more Sufi than I'd say anything else kind of influence in our household when I was growing up.
2:30.0	So I listened to a lot of music then, you know.
2:39.0	Eight years ago, his romance for Syrian music began in earnest. I travelled to Syria in 2008 to work with what was then called the Syrian National Orchestra
	...

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