Struggling, Resisting, and Sabreen

Palestinian-born band, Sabreen, presented their mix of modern and folklore music in a performance on Nov. 16 at Oscar Peterson Concert Hall.

The Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) introduced the band, whose name means “patience” in Arabic, as the non-political voice of the Palestinian people. The band was also identified as the spirit and resistance of those people suffering in Palestine. The band presented this resistance with their opening piece named “From a Human Being.” The song tells the story of a Palestinian man who has been separated from his family and wrongly imprisoned. Vocalist Wissam Murad sings, “And they took his beloved little one from him, while you can tell from her eyes she was fighting for him.” The theme of resistance was ongoing throughout their performance as they played songs like “Pray and Uplift Yourself”, and “I Want to Speak to the World”.

The band was able to signify the Palestinian struggle by various Palestinian anecdotes and using phrases like, “How we were, how wonderful we were” and “they said he was a murderer and they threw him into a cage of death.”

The band , which consists of five members, integrates modern and classical music into their own folklore music. They create this mix by using instruments like the violin and the electric guitar. They accompany them with Arabic instruments that include an Al-‘ud, a pear-shaped guitar that creates a soft timbre, low tessitura, and microtonal flexibility and a Qanun, a zither-type instrument that is played by plucking its strings, as well as the Arabic percussion tablah. This method made their music upbeat, modern and evidently more pleasing for the ears of the young Arab generation that is, at present time, less attracted to folklore.

Violinist Murad Khouri said that he had always played classical pieces and had never thought that the violin could be used alongside Arab instruments. Khouri said, “At first, it was hard to adjust because I wasn’t used to it, but with time, I learned to appreciate the beauty of mixing different kinds of instruments together as we do.”

According to the Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR), the host of the event, Sabreen worked for 25 years to perfect their style of music. “They followed two fundamental scopes of work, that of music production and competence building in music,” SPHR described. This, according to the band, allowed them to establish its first recording studio, produce its first album, and become an instructor in music schools. The SPHR said that the band enjoy teaching young musicians to play instruments and take pride in their teaching workshop.

The band connected with their audience when they allowed them to take part in the performance. The audience was allowed to sing segments of their songs, like a love song’s chorus that Murad referred to as “love, the Palestinian way.” Murad took the time to teach the audience the two-phrased chorus, then conducted them to sing in unison during the song. He was pleased at what he heard and portrayed it as he smiled and nodded to his fellow band members.

Sabreen will remain touring in Canada for the next two weeks. The SPHR stated that all profits from the tour will go towards paying legal expenses for a court case they’ll launch in the near future. According to Laith Marouf, a current member of the SPHR in Concordia, the SPHR in Western Ontario have been banned for the second year in a row for no legitimate reason and they want to take the case to court.

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