{"id":14892,"date":"2011-09-22T05:25:29","date_gmt":"2011-09-22T12:25:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=14892"},"modified":"2011-09-27T23:25:44","modified_gmt":"2011-09-28T06:25:44","slug":"music-is-the-sound-of-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=14892","title":{"rendered":"Music is the Sound of Peace"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhat shall we seek on our path? What shall we silently ask? Let rain make the earth green, let the sun rise<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 (White Rainbow \u2013 words: Bruria Schweitzer, music Yosef Hadar<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The wind from the sea and the voices of young girls singing rose up into the night like a prayer at the Arab-Jewish Community Center<\/a> in Jaffa last night. The media is ablaze with constant coverage of the conflicts here, updates flashing across my computer screen even as I write, but last night listening to the music, I felt another kind of dialogue, simple as water, flowing in and around us all. Saffron Caravan<\/a>, a multi-cultural ensemble of musicians, performed a free concert at the community center with guest artist Peter Yarrow, Israeli youth ensembles Bat Kol, the Voices of Peace Choir, and the trio of Yehonatan Gitelman, Guy Mintos and Daniel Benhorin from the Israel Conservatory of Music.<\/p>\n

Greek born Chicago based (Anshe Emet Synagogue) Hazzan Alberto Mizrahi introduced the ensemble\u2019s first number \u2013 a Greek version of Lecha Dodi (Come My Beloved \u2013 Jewish liturgical song in Hebrew, welcoming Shabbat) with an Afro-Cuban touch. From Howard Levy\u2019s opening arabesques on the harmonica, to Haytham Safia on oud, Kalyyan Pathak on tabla, Jean-Cristophe Leroy on percussion and Mizrahi\u2019s tenor wide as the night \u2013 it was liturgy come alive, music to make the spirit dance. When I hear Lecha Dodi again, I will hear the harmonica and oud in my mind.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Howard Levy, Alberto Mizrahi, Kalyan Pathak of Saffron Caravan at the Arab-Jewish Community Center in Jaffa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Liturgy, love songs in Ladino and Sama Maqam, Saffron Caravan\u2019s merging of styles and instruments bring radiance and energy to every piece. Iranian born Kiu Haghighi performed wonders on the santour, mallets dancing in the air at dizzying speeds, diving deep into spirals of sound. Levy, Saffron Caravan\u2019s musical director, was a revelation on the harmonica (and piano), an inspirational force throughout the concert.<\/p>\n

A talented young Israeli trio joined the caravan to perform Juan Tizol\u2019s Caravan – Yehonatan Gitelman on drums, Guy Mintos on piano and Daniel Benhorin on bass. It always fills me with wonder to hear musicians who have never met before, come together onstage and play. Somehow they find a common key, a shared understanding of different rhythms, and they don\u2019t seem to worry too much if it takes a bit of searching. Riding on the moment; a conversation without words.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Peter Yarrow<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Peter Yarrow with the Voices of Peace Choir and the Bat Kol Choir<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mizrahi led the Arab-Jewish Community Center\u2019s Voices of Peace Choir (musical director: Idan Toledano) in an Arabic-Aramaic chant\/song, inviting the audience to join in: \u201cWith God\u2019s help.\u201d There was a warm reunion onstage and off, as the wonderful musical ambassador of peace and love Peter Yarrow (Peter, Paul and Mary) sang the touching song \u201cDon\u2019t Laugh at Me\u201d once more with the Voices of Peace<\/a>, with the Bat Kol Choir (musical director: Anat Moragh) joining them. Arabic and Hebrew flowed in and through the music, Shalom Aleichem and Salaam Aleikum by turns, come and go in peace, the sound of the heart.<\/p>\n

Saffron Caravan is a project of Genesis at the Crossroads (GATC)<\/a>. The non-profit organization founded in 1999 by Wendy Sternberg, MD is dedicated to building peace and dialogue through the arts. The full Saffron Caravan ensemble includes ten musicians from Iran, Afghanistan, Cuba, Morocco, India, Israel and the United States. Their tour in Israel included concerts and workshops in Beer Sheva, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv \u2013 Jaffa, initiating the Junior Saffron Caravan Ensemble. Sternberg embraced the young Israeli musicians with a personal gift, donating her mother\u2019s cello to the trio from the Israel Conservatory of Music. The Saffron Caravan tour was made possible through the support of the Public Affairs Office of the US Embassy in Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhat shall we seek on our path? What shall we silently ask? Let rain make the earth green, let the sun rise.\u201d\u00a0 (White Rainbow \u2013 words: Bruria Schweitzer, music Yosef Hadar) The wind from the sea and the voices of young girls singing rose up into the night like a prayer at the Arab-Jewish Community […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14892\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}