- Title: SYRIA: Palestinian musician Marwan Abado marks 60th anniversary of UNRWA
- Date: 20th May 2010
- Summary: VARIOUS OF ABADO AND OTHER MUSICIANS PERFORMING IN CONCERT
- Embargoed: 4th June 2010 13:00
- Keywords:
- Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment / Showbiz
- Reuters ID: LVACAYF8MZGIK2WHI6E9V4N0QBEN
- Story Text: Palestinian musician Marwan Abado performs in Damascus to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees - UNWRA - by raising funds for the agency.
To mark the 60th anniversary of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNWRA), Palestinian composer and singer Marwan Abado is making his biggest Arab tour.
The 43-year old musician has already performed in the Jordanian capital Amman and the Syrian capital Damascus, and is also due to play in Aleppo in Syria and Beirut and Sidon in Lebanon.
Abado is part of a small but dogged class of artists working on reinvigorating Arab music by integrating Western influences without detaching it from its roots.
Himself a refugee whose family fled to Lebanon upon the creation of Israel in 1948, Abado grew up in the chaos of the Lebanese civil war. He used to practice the oud while his friends in a rough Beirut neighbourhood carried knifes.
He later immigrated to Austria and studied the Arab string instrument under Iraqi maestro Assim Chalabi in Vienna.
The tour is also raising money for U.N. Palestinian refugee schools. The musician - who himself studied in one of these schools - strongly believes education is the best way to give refugees a future.
"It is a reminder of education as a weapon," Abado told Reuters in an interview ahead of his Damascus concert at the Opera House.
"This weapon can be effective in giving us a hope of a better life. I think the refugees need this hope very much. They need to regain self-confidence in order to remove the burden of being a refuge. We used to dream of the return of refugees and of a Palestinian state, so we should not give up this weapon until this dream comes true," he said.
Abado's family came from Kufur Burum, a village on the border with Lebanon. It was razed along with hundreds of Palestinian villages following the creation of Israel.
For the tour Abado is leading a band comprised of classically trained Australian violinist Joanna Lewis, who lives in Vienna and often plays with jazz musicians, Austrian base guitarist Miki Liebermann, Polish clarinet player Maceij Jolebiowski and percussionist Peter Rosmanith.
Rosmanith says playing with Abado has taught him a lot about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"For me it's very, very important. Before I played with Marwan, I (didn't) know so much about the historical conflict about Israel and Palestine," he said.
"I'm very happy that I can do something for young people in Palestine," he said.
Some 4.7 million Palestinian refugees and their descendants live in squalid camps in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon in addition to those who live in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, according to UNRWA.
The Beirut concert on Saturday (May 22) will be broadcast to an audience in Bethlehem. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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