Volume 24 Issue 2 - October 2018

FEATURE
SEEKING
SYNERGIES
Second
Annual
Festival of
Arabic Music
and Arts
ANDREW TIMAR
The Festival of Arabic Music and Arts (FAMA) was
launched last year, produced by the Canadian
Arabic Orchestra (CAO) in partnership with the
Festival du Monde Arabe de Montréal. Presenting a series
of concerts, in the Toronto region and in Montreal, of
both Arab and non-Arab artists, it aimed to appeal not
only to Arabic audiences but also to a broad spectrum of
Canadians.
In the fall of 2017 FAMA staged 60 concerts of music, stand-up
comedy and theatre by international and local performers. FAMA
returns this year, October 26 to November 10, with an even more
enterprising expanded program, presented in 11 venues across the
GTA. The lineup features music, theatre, exhibitions and film from
Arab countries including Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Morocco, United
Arab Emirates, Iraq and Egypt, as well as several performances by the
CAO, which remains the driving force behind the GTA undertaking.
The Mississauga-based CAO was co-founded in 2015 by the husbandand-wife
team of qanun expert and orchestra president Wafa Al Zaghal,
and pianist Lamees Audeh, its music director. Fuelled by their twin
passion for Arabic and Western classical music, they initially began
with a modest ensemble of five musicians. Their expanded orchestra
today includes a string section of violins, viola, cello, bass, plus piano,
clarinet, ney/nay (Arabic reed flute), oud (Arabic lute) and three percussionists.
The instrumentation reflects the CAO’s goal of combining
Western and Arabic classical instruments and musics.
FAMA, and the CAO role in launching it, caught my attention this
time last year and I spoke with Audeh at the time. “Our repertoire is
evolving, along with the makeup of the orchestra,” she noted. “Our
approach puts less emphasis on [Arab] ethnicity and rather more on
the [Arabic] music itself. We wish to connect expatriate Arabs with
their classical Arabic musical culture … maintaining this cultural
heritage in the hearts and minds of the Arab community in Canada
and presenting it to future generations. But at the same time we want
to engage with all non-Arab communities. Our aim is to build bridges
between Canada’s diverse communities ... multicultural dialogue
among the tapestry of Canadian society through music.”
The shifting demographics of the GTA is one factor impacting
FAMA’s approach. On its website it notes that the “GTA, comprised of
the City of Toronto, Durham, Halton, Peel and York is home to about
6.5 million people speaking approximately 200 languages. … Arabs
constitute about four percent.” According to my lazy arithmetic, that’s
over a quarter million GTA residents who identify as Arab, a considerable
core audience base, within a much larger musically engaged and
potentially interested population.
Venues this year range from public spaces and mid-sized theatres,
to large concert halls. With the aim of reaching core and wider audiences
where they live, work and play, they are strategically and widely
dispersed: Mississauga, Oakville, North York, but also in Toronto’s
cultural core: at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, Jane Mallet Theatre
and 918 Bathurst Centre for Culture.
The 2018 Festival opens October 26, close to the CAO’s home base,
at the Living Arts Centre-Hammerson Hall, Mississauga with a concert
by the multi-award-winning Lebanese singer and popular music
songwriter Marwan Khoury. Khoury has had numerous highlights in
his three-decade-long career: His Kil Al Asayed (2005) album made
him a music star throughout the Arab world, topping charts. Last year
he signed with the Al Araby TV Network to host a TV music show
titled Tarab with Marwan Khoury where he performed evergreen
Arabic songs with Arab guest stars. It’s a foregone conclusion that his
GTA fans will make this concert a hot ticket event.
10 | October 2018 thewholenote.com