Harmonious in spirit and sound, Aswat ensemble breaks barriers between Arabic, Western music

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Barney Jones has been a musician all his life. He sings, composes and works as a sound designer and recording engineer. His credits are substantial, but when he sings with a local Arabic choir, he admits, "I have anxiety that I sound like a total dork to the Arabs."

Jones is a member of Aswat, a multicultural ensemble of singers and musicians who play Arabic, Turkish and Andalucian music. It's a unique amalgam, even among the richly diverse community of Bay Area musicians and choral groups. Roughly half the members are ethnic Arabs -- Jordanian, Iraqi, Syrian, Palestinian and Algerian -- while the other half, like Jones, are Americans with European roots.

Aswat, which performs at 8 p.m. Saturday at Mills College, was founded five years ago by Nabila Mango, a San Mateo psychotherapist, singer and educator. From the onset, Mango sought to combine Western and Arab members in the group and to encourage American singers, like Jones, to perform solos in Arabic.

"It's a bridge for both groups to connect to the other," says Mango, who emigrated from Palestinian territory in 1965 and teaches Arabic language at Skyline College in San Mateo. "For most of us, it's very therapeutic."

At a recent evening rehearsal at the Arab Cultural Center in San Francisco, Mango took on the role of mother hen: rushing about, looking after everyone's comfort, making sure a guest was well fed. She's a live wire, an energy source, and the group seems to draw its emotional cues and lightheartedness from her.

Fifteen vocalists filled the center of the room, joking between songs, accompanied by a nay (a nine-jointed cane flute), Arabic tabla (goblet-shaped drum), riqq (a small tambourine), qanan (75-stringed zither), two ouds (similar to a lute or guitar) and two kamans (violins).

One of the oud players, Saed Muhssin, is Aswat's musical director. A short, elegant man who came from Palestinian territory 12 years ago, Muhssin selects the repertoire and calls himself "kind of a purist." He programs only folkloric and classical compositions and won't abide contemporary Arabic pop, "which has become almost indistinguishable from Indian popular music or Western popular music. It gives up all the fine details of intonation."

Mango started the group, she says, to foster cultural harmony and counter negative stereotypes about Arabs and Muslims. "There is so much twisted information about Arabs in this country. I thought about how to reach Americans and tell them about the contributions of Arab civilization or Islamic civilization -- to try to make them understand who I am."

The best way to reach their hearts, Mango decided, was through music. "People are much less judgmental when you present to them the cultural aspect and much more judgmental when you talk about religion or politics. So I started with a choir because music is the universal language, right? The language of the soul."

Mango, who doesn't allow political talk at rehearsals, wanted to see what would happen when American singers not only stand side by side with Arabic singers, but take on solo parts at each concert. "We would never ask an American to do a solo unless we feel they're really ready, musically and pronunciation-wise."

For some, it's a shock to hear Arabic sounds emerging from Western mouths. "The Arab community are extremely fascinated when they hear the Americans do solo," Mango enthuses. "Just beyond themselves. Like, 'How could they learn this impossible language and master the music?' "

Only once, Muhssin says, has anyone complained. It happened last weekend at a Women's Building concert in San Francisco, where an American sang each solo for a Levantine classical piece. "He said, 'You guys destroyed the song because they're not Arab and they're singing this traditional song and you can't do this.' My response was pretty much, 'Thank you for your feedback. We will consider it.' I ignored it because they did a wonderful job with a really complicated vocal part."

Creating the right sound is tough, says Barney Jones, a tall, redheaded man who was born in Turkey -- the son of a Foreign Service officer -- and lived in the Middle East his first 10 years. "Singing in America and in Europe is all about vowels, while Arabic singing, like the language, revels in the consonants. "Probably the hardest consonant to get your mouth around is called the 'ayn.' It is made by gently constricting the throat and then snapping it open, and it always leads to a vowel. Americans usually sound like they're gagging when they first try it."

For Westerners, there's also a long learning curve with the Maqamat, an Arabic system of scales and modes that includes complicated quarter notes. But for Mango, there's nothing even slightly odd about cross-cultural musical exploration: "It's just like the opera, right? If you have a musical ear and the right preparation, if you love that music, you can relate to it. It gets into your soul and bones and everything -- so what's wrong with that?"

After Sept. 11, 2001, Aswat lost a lot of members, both Arabs and Americans. "People were afraid to come to the building, to the Arab Cultural Center," Mango says. "They were afraid to be affiliated with an Arab group. But my decision was: 'We're not going to stop. We're not going to give in.' "

"The Arab Cultural Center received threats," Muhssin adds. "People were afraid to be there. So, in addition to all the sadness I had because of what happened on Sept. 11, I was also saddened by the reactions of people going home and hiding, basically. That was the opposite lesson of what we should learn. We shouldn't isolate ourselves; otherwise, we keep alive the suspicion. And suspicion is the cancer that causes people to do horrible things."

Aswat vocalist Pat Ferrell, who is married to Jones, says she was drawn to Aswat in part because of its potential for community healing. "When Westerners hear the word 'Arab,' they sometimes feel fear. I understood this because most of the information I had about Arabs tended to promote that. I knew this ancient culture has great beauty to share -- it's just that I hadn't been exposed to it. So I joined Aswat."

At her first rehearsal, "that fear rose again and I asked myself, 'What am I doing here?' It also occurred to me that I had never had a conversation with an Arab before. Living in a diverse community like San Francisco, I found this surprising. The Arabs in Aswat were very warm, gentle and welcoming towards me. That relaxed me, so that at the second rehearsal, when Saed asked me to sing a solo in a language I had never heard before, I was open to it."

Once she got comfortable in Arabic, Ferrell says, she felt a freedom she hadn't experienced in Western music. "Because Arabic music has many extra notes compared to Western scales, I felt like a bird in flight -- swooping up and down as I sang. Then I realized, 'Ah, this freedom is the beauty.' "

Freedom, and in some cases unexpected connections. This year, Jones was in Chicago when he noticed the driver of his cab was an Arabic man. "Turned out he was from Iraq. So I said, 'Hey, do you know this song?' and started singing 'treed minneh ti fah' and he hooted and joined right in.

"There were three songs that we knew in common, so we kept singing and missed the exit on the freeway. Of course he turned off the meter. It was a truly exhilarating experience."

Aswat performs at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Concert Hall at Mills College, 5000 MacArthur Blvd. in Oakland. Tickets are $12 general, $6 seniors, available at the door.

E-mail Edward Guthmann at eguthmann@sfchronicle.com.

Group brings the Arabian arts to life

By Emily Fancher, STAFF WRITER

Inside Bay Area

SAN MATEO

NABILA MANGO KNOWS that most Americans aren't acquainted with the qanun, a 75-stringed zither used in Near Eastern music. Nor with the riqq, a small tambourine, nor the kaman, an Arabic violin.

Most probably haven't heard of Nimah Nawwab, the Saudi woman who writes poetry in English, or Rasheed Munji, a local Tunisian mime.

That's why Mango is so driven to bring the diversity of Arab arts and artists to the public through Zawaya, a nonprofit organization she co-founded two years ago.

"Zawaya" means "corners" in Arabic, Mango said, and its goal is to cover every niche of Arab art and culture abroad and in the Bay Area.

The group grew out of Mango's Arabic community choir, Aswat, and was founded after 9/11, partially to help ease tensions and dispel stereotypes through cultural exchange.

"One way to reach Americans is through cultural activities," Mango, 61, said over a cup of mint-and-sage tea and a plate of dates in her living room.

In San Mateo County, there are roughly 8,400 people of Arab and Middle Eastern descent, with 4,200 of those foreign-born, according to the 2000 census.

Matthew Shenoda, a lecturer at San Francisco State University who is familiar with Zawaya, said a surge in American interest in Arab culture after 9/11 has been positive but that, despite greater curiosity, greater understanding of Arab culture hasn't always followed.

Shenoda said art is perhaps the most important vehicle for Arabs wanting to reveal their humanity in a world that often discriminates against them.

"If the Arab people want to be recognized as a distinct community, one of the things it must do is celebrate its own art," he said.

Zawaya celebrates art through annual events, such as bringing one writer from the Arab world to the United States for a speaking tour atlocal colleges, and the yearly Ramadan "Iftar" dinner for immigrants in San Francisco.

It also hosts a monthly book club in a member's home and sponsors occasional concerts of Aswat's music and other traditional musicians, as well as a one-time photography class for children and mime performances in schools.

The group is working on creating a play based on real-life experiences of local young people.

Board members range from a Lebanese calligrapher to a Palestinian fine artist to an Egyptian filmmaker.

Mango, the group's president, was born in Jaffa, Israel, but moved with her family to Jordan in 1948 with other Palestinian refugees. She came to the United States to study library science on a scholarship in 1955.

A former librarian of Arabic manuscripts at Harvard and other universities, she received a master's degree in Islamic studies and did her doctoral work on paleography. After a stint selling computer parts with her then-husband, she returned to school in 1997 to get her master's degree in counseling and now works with Arab and Muslim families, mostly recent immigrants, in San Francisco's Tenderloin district.

"Most Americans don't know the influence of Arab culture on Western culture," Mango said.

She said didn't want her daughter, Bisan Shehadeh, 23, to be one of those Americans. So every year, they visit one Arab country together, and this year's pick is Morocco.

"She gets to see the diversity of the Arab world, and this stereotyping is gone," said Mango. "She says, 'Wow, Egypt is so different from Jordan.'"

Staff writer Emily Fancher can be reached at (650) 306-2428 or efancher@sanmateocountytimes.com.

The Daily Star

Using art in the battle for hearts and minds
Group works to challenge Western stereotypes of Arabs

By Brooke Anderson
Special to The Daily Star

SAN FRANCISCO, California: Political stereotypes often dictate Americans' images of Arabs. But one relatively new organization based in San Francisco hopes to put a human face on Arabs through art.

Established just over four and a half years ago, in January 2000, Zawaya (which translates as "corners") is a platform for artists and musicians - it has its own choir, called Aswat ("Voices") - and works to bring all corners of the Arab world to audiences in America.

Aswat began a year before the general organization of Zawaya. There are approximately 20 singers, but that number can increase to nearly 50 before an out-of-state performance, laughs Nabila Mango, founder of Zawaya, recalling an invitation to perform in Seattle two years ago.

Mango, a Palestinian originally from Jaffa, formed this organization to give Arab artists a platform to present their art to the general public. The idea, she says, "stemmed from the fact that over the past several years it has become harder to communicate with Americans about Middle East politics."

She believes that art is an easier medium to communicate.

"We found that we could reach a lot of Americans through art," Mango says. Yet she acknowledges that, "A lot of our programs are politically loaded but not openly political."

For example, Zawaya recently hosted a book reading by London-based Palestinian political activist and author,Ghada Karmi, who wrote "In Search of Fatima," the story of the life of a Palestinian woman.

The group brought Karmi to universities and radio shows.

"This puts a face on the Palestinian story," Mango says, pointing out that, "whether we like it or not, it's political."

Last May, Zawaya presented an Arab-American rapper called Iron Shaykh whose songs are also politically charged - he is a Palestinian Lebanese.

Zawaya, however, is not only about music and literature - nor is it just about Arabs educating non-Arabs about their rich culture, according to Faweq Oweis.

Oweis, a Zawaya board member and artist who has also been selected to design the entrance of Detroit's soon-to-open Arab museum, explains that he receives frequent e-mails from Zawaya patrons who say that the Zawaya presentations are "informative."

To his surprise, many Palestinian-Americans and other Arabs learned about writer and artist Khalil Gibran and cartoonist Naji al-Ali - two icons of the Arab world - for the first time through Zawaya.

In fact, getting Arab-Americans acquainted with their own culture is one of Zawaya's primary goals. "

"We worry about our youth," says Mango. But, she adds smiling, "After our events the kids leave feeling proud to be Arab-American."

Saed Muhsin, an oud player and director of Aswat, is delighted to see that Arab culture is finally reaching people from outside and inside the community alike. While on stage, he can see older Arabs lip synching to traditional Arab folk music. For Westerners, he thinks Arab music can be an innocuous introduction to Arab culture, and can help them overcome prejudices they might have.

"Ultimately, we have to become part of the community at large," Muhsinn says, "So, playing for non-Arabs is crucial."

Vincent Delgrado, a Mexican-American percussionist, has been playing Arab music for over 40 years. He began by playing in a group called the Haji Babi Trio in 1962, with an Iraqi and a Lebanese. At that time, it was the first Middle East music group in northern California. Since then, he has made four CDs (with a second group called al-Jazaer), and has become a successful performer of Arab music.

Delgrado believes that playing with Aswat, though not financially rewarding, is more important because of the backlash happening against Arabs all over the world. He recently played traditional Arab music at a conference in the US between Arabs and Americans.

"Twenty-five years ago, if there was an Arab cultural event, it was mainly for Arabs," recalls Delgrado. Today, he says, most of their audiences are non-Arab.

Still, the audiences that Zawaya reaches might be people who are already well informed and interested in the Middle East. Many of the non-Arabs who attend Zawaya presentations and Aswat performances tend to be Americans who have lived in the Middle East or who study the region.

Lionel Traubman, who hosts regular Jewish-Palestinian dialogue groups at his home, said, after an Aswat performance in San Jose, California, "What I always wish for Arab and Palestinian events is that the larger community be invited. ... I am a Jew, and this brings us closer, breaks stereotypes and shows the beauty and intelligence of these cultures."

For more information on Zawaya go to www.zawaya.org

May 2004, pages 56-57

Northern California Chronicle

Zawaya Presents “

Arab Artists: Their Words And Works”

By Elaine Pasquini


ABOVE: Zawaya members (l-r) Alice Nashashibi, Fayeq Oweis, Haya Shawa Benhalim, Denmo Ibrahim, James Asher, Nabila Mango and Khalil Bendib (staff photos E. Pasquini).

ALWAYS A national leader in the fields of art, music and literature, San Francisco is home to an abundance of talented Arab-American artists, writers and performers. A Feb. 15 reception at the Catharine Clark Gallery on Geary Street provided Bay Area residents a unique opportunity to meet several of these artists and view their work.

San Mateo-based Zawaya, a non-governmental organization dedicated to promoting Arab arts and culture, sponsored and organized the show, entitled, “Arab Artists: Their Words and Works.”

Arab cartoonists were well represented at the event. Algerian-American Khalil Bendib discussed his latest editorial cartoon book. Egyptian artist, illustrator, and cartoonist Hassan Fedawy displayed his “Cartoons of the Middle East ,” while in a small side gallery Fayeq Oweis gave a Power Point presentation on the works of the late Palestinian cartoonist Naji Al-Ali.


Lebanese-American artist Yasser Dib (staff photos E. Pasquini).

Beautiful watercolors titled “Old Doors with Calligraphy” by artist Nahda Balaa adorned the walls of the gallery, along with “Fusion of Arabic and Far Eastern Spirituality” acrylics by Lebanese-American artist Yasser Dib.

Performance artists Denmo Ibrahim and James Asher entertained the crowd with their interview-based work, “In the Shadows of 9/11.” And as the afternoon lapsed into evening, Yusra Benhalim read poetry and Saed Muhssen and Vince Delgado played classical Arabic music on the oud and percussion instruments.

Alice Nashashibi displayed and offered for sale beautiful Palestinian embroidery made by women in rural Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank to supplement their family income. The craft has been handed down for generations from mother to daughter.

Zawaya’s board of directors is a virtual who’s who of the vibrant Northern California Arab-American community. Officers and board members include Nabila Mango, Haya Shawa Benhalim, Shahdan Shazly, Jess Ghannam, Ferial Kardosh, Duraid Musleh, Maher Sabry, Margaret Titus, Fayeq Oweis, Youmna Chlala and Alice Nashashibi.

Zawaya president Nabila Mango has been one of the Bay Area’s most energetic and leading activists for many years. In 1999, the professor of Arabic at San Mateo College founded ASWAT, the San Francisco Bay Area’s only community ensemble performing classical and folk Arabic music. The Palestinian-born Mango is a recipient of the Arab Educational and Cultural Award for outstanding contributions in arts and education. For more information visit the Web site <http://www.zawaya.org/> or e-mail <info@zawaya.org>.

Elaine Pasquini is a free-lance photojournalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area

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