Simon Shaheen with his Berklee College of Music Ensemble

Mothers give us…

…endless love, laughter, and dreams. They help us grow and reach our fullest potential. In honor of all our mothers, the Center of Arabic Culture (CAC) is pleased to invite you to a Mother’s Day Concert. Honor any mother with a donation to CAC and show her your love for her by attending CAC’s Mother’s Day Concert with Simon Shaheen.

Simon Shaheen is one of the most significant Arab musicians, composers, and performers of his generation. His work incorporates and reflects a legacy of Arabic music, while it forges ahead to new frontiers, embracing many different styles in the process. His soaring technique, melodic ingenuity, and unparalleled grace have earned him international acclaim as a virtuoso on the ‘our and violin.

RSVP to info@cacboston.org or call 877.222.9740 x. 701

Open to the public. Donations appreciated. Seating is first come, fist serve.

The MIT Arab Students’ Organization Science and Technology Achievement Awards, or simply, “MIT-ASO SciTech Awards,” was initiated in 2003 to honor the achievements of Arabs, and Arab-Amercians, in U.S. institutions, who have had significant contributions in the fields of science and technology. The SciTech Awards are divided to four main categories: the Lifetime Achievement Award, the Young Professional Award, the Graduate Student Award, and the Undergraduate Student Award, in which the winners are selected by a selection committee of four MIT Arab and Arab-American professors who come from different science and technology related backgrounds. The Arab Students’ Organization at MIT established the institution of these awards in hope of fostering a bold new vision of a scientifically inquisitive, technologically pioneering and knowledge empowered, Arab American community. The awards banquet links different generations of Arab and Arab-American science and technology specialists and presents a valuable opportunity for Arab and Arab-American students to interact with accomplished professionals from the community.

For more information, click HERE

The touch of the hand on the piano is the purest expression of the soul … Is it possible to create music compiled between melody based on the oldest music notation in the world, discovered in the ancient city of Ugarit, Syria dating back to 3400 B.C. and modern classical tunes? Yes, of course … when the creator is Malek Jandali!

Born in Germany to Syrian parents in 1972, he started his piano studies at the Jugendmusikschule, then at the Arab Conservatory of Music and the High Institute of Music in Damascus with Vladimir Zaritski and Victor Bunin from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory. As a young child, Malek enjoyed all forms of art and at the age of 9 he appeared in his first public piano recital in his home town of Homs. Having studied classical piano from an early age, and despite his enthusiasm for the compositions of JS Bach, Beethoven and Rachmaninoff, he soon began displaying a gift of improvisation.

In 1995 he received a full scholarship to the United States to pursue advanced studies in music at the North Carolina School of the Arts with Eric Larsen. Active as a performer for many years, he decided to shift his attention to composition after graduating with a BA in music from Queens University. During his studies there under Paul Nitsch, he received numerous prizes including the Stegner Foundation for the Arts Fellowship and the 1997 Outstanding Musical Performer Award. He studied composition and orchestration with Eddie Horst, Harry Bulow, Lawrence Dillon and Richard Prior. In 2004, he completed his Master Degree from the University of North Carolina.

In the recording studio he has created an eclectic body of compositions. Malek has a deep interest in writing music for dramatic purposes and has often drawn upon visual images for musical inspiration. His compositions range from solo instrumental pieces to large ensemble and orchestral works. His music is dynamic, energetic and powerful, combining orchestra with piano and Arabic modes and melodies.

6:30 p.m. Admission for Dinner Table Seating
7:30 p.m. Admission for Balcony Seating

Tickets for Dinner and Concert can be obtained by calling 781-632-4492 or by email at zatassi@yahoo.com

**Balcony Seating:  

**Dinner tickets are not available from Mechanics Hall; Only Balcony Seating is available at the Mechanics Hall Box Office.

Tickets purchased after March 16th will be held at will call.
Last day to order tickets online: Friday, March 30th.

Mechanics Hall Box Office is open Monday through Friday 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

508-752-0888 or 508-752-5608.

Balcony Seats do not have elevator access. If you have specific seating requirements, contact the Mechanics Hall Box Office Monday through Friday 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at 508-752-0888 or 508-752-5608.

The Tufts University Department of Music presents Tufts Tahkt, the Arabic Music Ensemble, in Arabic Music of the Near East in the Distler Performance Hall at the Perry and Marty Granoff Music Center on Saturday, March 3, 2012 at 1 p.m. as part of the Tufts Saturday Family and Children’s Concert Series.

Under the direction of Kareem Roustom, the concert will feature performances on instruments such as the darbuka, the oud, and the qanun played by Tufts undergraduate and graduate students, as well as special guest artists.

The Granoff Music Center is located at 20 Talbot Avenue on Tufts’ Medford/Somerville campus. Admission is free and open to the public. For more information, please visit as.tufts.edu/music/musiccenter or call the Granoff Music Center Box Office at 617.627.3679.

To view the flier for this event, click HERE

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11
@ 7:00 PM
Tufts University, Distler Hall
<http://as.tufts.edu/music/musiccenter/visit/directions.htm>
Nearer to East: Contemporary Chamber Music from the Arab World & Beyond
Featuring music by Karim Al-Zand, Kinan Azmeh, Bushra El-Turk, Mohammed
Fairouz, Zaid Jabri & Kareem Roustom
A Concert by LUNATICS AT LARGE
Lunatics at Large, the renowned New York City-based new music ensemble,
will bring this exciting and unique program to Tufts University on their
first visit to the area. Hailed by the New York Times as “…young,
energetic, and finely polished,” Lunatics at Large will explore music by
composers who live and work in the U.S.A. and Europe but have strong ties
to the Arab world. Avoiding exotic and orientalist cliches, this
thoughtful program brings together a collection of passionate, eloquent,
and bold works by a group of composers whose music both reflects the past
and speaks in the idioms of the present.
Distler Performance Hall. Tickets are free with a Tufts ID card (limit two
per ID) and $10 for general admission. Call 617.627.3679 for tickets. This
concert has been made possible by the Granoff Music Fund.

Advanced Arabic Calligraphy

This course will strenghten and further develop participants  Arabic calligraphy technique and broaden their exposure of other scripts. Students will be provided with persistent hands-on practice including in-class practice, individual/group instruction, and take-home assignments as well. This course will combine lectures with visual materials, discussion of reading and/or visual evidence, and hands-on practice with bamboo and ink.

Photo Credit: Leona M. Merk Photography

Time: 3:15 PM-4:30 PM, Sundays, 1/22-2/26
Tuition: $120
Material Cost: $10 (expected cost to be incurred by students for materials)
Instructor: Wafaa Alshimrty
Prerequisites: Prior knowledge of the Arabic alphabet is requested. 
Location: Center for Arabic Culture located at the Armory, 191 Highland Avenue, 6B, Somerville, MA

To register click  here. 

May 5th, 2012 @ 8 pm
Berklee Performance Center
Tickets Now On Sale

Lebanese Master Marcel Khalifé will perform the prophetic poems of the Arab World’s most renowned and beloved poet, Mahmoud Darwish, in tribute to the Arab Spring.

The poetry of Mahmoud Darwish (www.mahmouddarwish.com), the melodies of Marcel Khalife (www.marcelkhalife.com), resonating across the Arab world from the Middle East to North Africa, resounding above the din of conflict and poverty, singing instead of the shade of grapevines, the bright eyes of loved ones, the heartache of divisions and decline that could be healed, love that could be returned.

Marcel Khalifé, Lebanese master of the oud (Arabic lute), evokes this world, honoring the spirit of his late friend and associate Mahmoud Darwish a strikingly original Palestinian poet born in Palestine whose poetry has been translated to more than 25 languages worldwide and extensively published in the US. Khalifé’s new concert program, In the Presence of Absence: An Homage to Mahmoud Darwish, revisits and re-imagines the ties that bound these two powerful advocates of Arab culture, one that weaves the rich complexities of its great history, the diversity of its cultures with the humanity and longing of today and deeply expressed by the dawn of the current monumental Arab spring sweeping the Arab world.

Marcel Khalife is the recipient of many awards, including the UNESCO AArtist for Peace Award. His official Facebook page is http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Marcel-Khalife/6930873077.

The School of the Museum of Fine Arts presents:

Histories of Now: Six Artists from Cairo

January 18–March 17, 2012

Featuring the works of:

Mohamed Abla, Ahmed Basiony, Hala Elkoussy, Shady El Noshokaty, Sabah Naim, Moataz Nasr

Opening during the one year anniversary of the first mass protests in Tahrir Square, “Histories of Now: Six Artists from Cairo” brings together work by some of the most inspiring and influential video and new media artists working in Egypt today, including a multi-channel video installation by the late Ahmed Basiony featured in the Egyptian Pavilion of the 54th Venice Biennale.

This exhibition is an intimate investigation of the complex social framework and collective formal engagements currently being explored by Egyptian artists. With many of these artists exhibiting in the northeast region of the United States for the first time, “Histories of Now” introduces viewers to the diversity of voices, concerns and approaches—both material and conceptual—found in today’s Cairo; six artists presenting six contrasting visions, united only by context, creative discipline and geographic proximity.

January 23, 6–8 pm
School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Opening Reception (Free)

January 25, 6:30 pm
Remis Auditorium, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Deborah and Martin Hale Visiting Artist Lecture: Contemporary Art and the New Egyptian Identity, a multimedia lecture and performance with Shady El Noshokaty. ($15, MFA members, students, seniors; $18, non-members)

SMFA Histories of Now Flier

For more information, click HERE