Layali al-Tarab fi Quds al-‘Arab Festival Closes Its 2023 Season

The Yabous Cultural Centre, in collaboration with the National Conservatory of Music in Jerusalem and El-Hakawati Palestinian National Theatre, delivered a stunning festival for Palestinian Jerusalemites, which wrapped up October 5. This beautifully executed monthlong tribute, titled Layali al-Tarab fi Quds al-‘Arab, was put together to celebrate musical culture and nurture musical appreciation among Palestinians. This was the 11th edition of the festival, launched with the support of the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development and other sponsors. 

This event followed the weeklong Jerusalem Festival of Music, “Stand Up Jerusalem,” held August 3–10.

The word tarab in Arabic refers to the state of singing, often with a repeated tune, which induces a vivid emotion; it could best be described as glee, enchantment, or even a mystical ecstasy. Tarab singers use captivating vocal music, and they position the melodic modes (maqamat) with the power to transport listeners to higher realms.

One could say that tarab was at the heart of the exceptional music theater performance “Shuyukh al-Tarab” by Siraj Choir. The exquisite production, performed for the first time in Jerusalem on September 21, was led by Samer Bishara and featured over 40 male and female artists; Amer Hlehel was the writer and lead actor, and Ayman Nahhas was the director. The show explored the journey of the most prominent sheikhs of the 20th century who had used music, maqamat (Arabic music melody types), and intonations and religious supplications and implorations—prayers, so to speak—as modes of musical expression.

The festival also featured two popular local Palestinian hip-hop bands: DAM (from Lydda), on September 7, and Wal’at Band (from Acre), performing a week later, on September 14. Both bands performed in the outdoor courtyard of the National Conservatory of Music, and are highly regarded by Palestinians across the country and in the diaspora, as well as in Jerusalem. DAM’s female vocalist is Maysa Daw, who also performs as a solo artist and with the Palestinian-Swiss-Dominican trio, Kallemi.

The closing ceremony on October 5 featured al-Mathhabjiyya (The Gilded). Established in 2020, this group of 11 Palestinian Jerusalemite musicians got their training at the National Conservatory of Music and are often led by the conservatory teachers. Lately they’ve been gaining prominence as an established local band.

In conjunction with the musical performances, an art exhibition, “Cold Water,” by artists Michael Jabreen, a multidisciplinary artist and architect, and Rasha al-Jundi, a visual storyteller and photographer, was on display daily from September 9 to 30, 2023, in the Mahmoud Darwish Lounge of the Yabous Cultural Centre. Theirs was a multidisciplinary visual project that mixed still photography, drawing, sound, and cinematography; they explored the thin line between the past and the future, between physical exile and personal abandonment. The exhibit was “searching for the common thread between two stories written by two exiles, between exile outside the homeland and exile within it.”1 

Despite the many challenges that Palestinians face in Jerusalem, there is no question that the city retains an abundant reservoir of native creativity, art, and outstanding music. This summer and fall were particularly resplendent with diverse cultural offerings.