Art & Culture
Passing the conductor’s baton
The Syrian National Symphonic Orchestra is now led by a young man filled with big dreams and an ambition that knows no bounds. His name is Missak Baghboudarian and since assuming his new job as Conductor of the Orchestra in 2003, he has managed to impress and educate, promoting classical music with style and passion, throughout Syria and the Arab World.
Auctioning with Christie’s
Ending a month of consistent fundraising and awareness activities, Basma had one last ace up its sleeve, its charity dinner and auction at the Four Seasons Hotel Damascus.
The Damascene box office of 1924
It all started with two puppets, made of rough leather, called Karakoz and Iwath. Speaking in a Damascene dialect, they mirrored average Syrians in the Ottoman Empire, and were shown as shadow images from behind a screen at coffee shops during the medieval years of the Ottoman Empire. All this preceded modern cinema, which only came to Syria in 1908.
Ode to a Guitarist
It rained in the middle of summer when world guitarist Jan Akkerman played music in Damascus last August. “I brought rain with me,” the charismatic musician told me one recent afternoon. Remember the awkward rain showers that wetted the Damascene Citadel during the last Jazz festival last year? That was the day Akkerman was scheduled to play tunes that rock the soul with his band of musicians, including seasoned Dutch bassist Wilbrand Meischke. They not only defied the awkward weather by going on stage as scheduled, they also ended up questioning long standing stereotypes about Syria and the Arab World.
Arab Calligraphy and the poetic imprints of Khaled al-Saai
Khaled al-Saai is an innovator who likes to take letters out of their customary context and dress them with new mediums. Born in 1970, Saai had excelled as a calligrapher since he was 18 years old, taking his passion to new highlights in 1998 where he got his master’s in fine arts from Damascus University. Many exhibitions and countries embraced al-Saai’s art, however nothing remains more stunning than his experimentation with calligraphy and music.
Khaled Takriti: Masterfully combining two schools of art
Renowned Syrian artist, Khaled Takriti was born in Beirut in 1964. He is a graduate of the Architecture and Painting Academy in Damascus, and he worked as an architect in Damascus's General Directorate of Antiquity and Museums. Since childhood, he mastered drawings and oil painting, developing his skills at several schools of art. He moved to New York in 1992, where he stayed for two years, acquiring artistic techniques on temporary art. As he matured artistically, he moved to Paris where he has chosen to live and work as a full-time artist since 2006.
The show must go on…
A theater collective that came into being a decade ago, after its players were kicked out off stage and were forced to perform their plays in basements around Damascus, is now homeless again. As a result of a business squabble, Teatro, a theater company and collective that offers a wide range of acting and movement classes, is no longer operating out of the traditional Arabic house in the Old City where the group has grown over the past two years. May Skaf, Teatro leader, is an actress who has starred in stage and screen productions and comes from a prominent artistic family in Damascus. She is now holding theater classes at friends’ homes and in public parks until she can find a new space. “It’s tiring to start from the beginning again, to find a place with no money,” Skaf said. “It’s not easy, but I’ll do it.”
Syria’s Jack Nicholson speaks to Forward
Abbas Alnouri is probably the most popular actor today in Syria. Talented, charming, and proud, he spoke to FW: Magazine from his home in Damascus about his popular roles in Damascene dramas, depicting daily life in the Ottoman Era and under the French Mandate.
Fadi Yazigi: Markup of an artistic awakening
The dynamic and consistent development of plastic arts gave birth to new tremendous and unprecedented works created in different centuries, ages and civilizations. In the works of renowned Syrian artist Fadi Yazigi, we can feel the potential forces inherent in his artistic creations, transforming his canvas into an inner necessity and a need to communicate with what is beautiful in life and reality.
Voices pealing out in joy
The singers have all filed into their place. They’ve seen each other a lot over the last three months, if not longer, yet they still find a lot to talk about. They’re happy to see each other and to be there, and the bubbly chatter is resisting being stopped by the conductor waving her hands calling them to attention. Then it happens; with a snap, they’re suddenly locked on her every move, and with laserlike precision, their undivided focus and youthful exuberance has been set forth towards one goal.