Gala to Celebrate Al-Bustan’s 10th Anniversary
ANNOUNCING SPECIAL TICKET PRICE FOR STUDENTS: $50 only! Get your tickets now! Join us for an evening of celebration, tasty Arab cuisine, and beautiful music and art, while celebrating 10 years of Arab culture and education in Philadelphia!
Date: Saturday April 20, 2013
Time: 6:30-9:30pm – Master of Ceremonies Michaela Majoun, host of XPN Morning Show
6:30 – Doors Open
7:00 – Buffet Dinner (cash bar)
8:00 – 10-Year Retrospective
8:00 – Performance by Marcel Khalife with Al-Bustan’s Resident Takht Ensemble, and a live visual art performance by Kevork Mourad
9:30 – Live Auction
Location: Trinity Center for Urban Life, 22nd and Spruce St, Philadelphia Download Parking Coupon or discounted parking
BE A SPONSOR and support Al-Bustan’s mission of presenting and teaching the Arabic language, arts, and culture!
Tickets: $150 per person Purchase tickets online or send payment by mail. Tax deductible portion of ticket is $75. All proceeds benefit Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture.
RSVP: extended to April 13, 2013
Seating capacity: limited to 190 so please get your tickets early!
MARCEL KHALIFE is an internationally acclaimed Lebanese composer, oud master, and singer. Born in Amicht, Lebanon in 1950, Khalife began his music career studying the oud at the National Academy of Music in Beirut. He garnered attention early in his career in the Middle East and abroad for shining light on the oud as a solo performance instrument. In 1976, he formed the Al Mayadeen Ensemble and began to experiment synthesizing Arabic classical modes with contemporary Western instrumentation, and integrating poetry in his musical repertoire.Khalife is distinguished by his dedication to the ideals of humanism and music’s ability to impart these ideals. This humanism has been a driving force of his music, which crosses the barriers of nationalism, religion, and culture. Moreover, Khalife’s music has the ability to give voice to those who have none. As he notes:Nothing justifies our art other than to speak for those who cannot speak. This is the cause for which we dedicated our efforts, and the cause that endorsed our voices. We only wished to take it as far as we can, and vowed to release our work as songs of love for, and unity with, the victims of persecution everywhere.In 2005, Khalife was named UNESCO Artist for Peace for his achievements as an artist and humanitarian. In 2008, he was named the music director and resident composer of the newly formed Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra. Al-Bustan is pleased to have hosted Marcel Khalife on March 13, 2011 in a concert honoring his work and longstanding contributions globally and in the Arab world. Khalife is Honorary Chair of Al-Bustan’s Advisory Board.
KEVORK MOURAD, an artist of Armenian origin, was born in Kamechli, Syria. After his secondary education in Syria, he studied at the Yerevan Institute of Fine Arts in Armenia where he received his MFA in 1996. He came to the United States shortly after where he has performed and exhibited widely. Early on in his career, he developed a technique of spontaneous painting in which he shares the stage with musicians, his art created in counterpoint to their music. He has collaborated with a wide range of musicians, including Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, Kinan Azmeh, Ezequiel Viñao, Tambuco, Song Fusion, Mari Kimura, Ken Ueno, Liubo Borissov, Eve Beglarian, Rami Khalife, Maya Trio, SYOTOS, and Brooklyn Rider, among others. Mourad has performed and exhibited his paintings and works on paper in museums and concert halls around the world, including the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Tenri Center, Angel Orensantz, 92nd St. Y, Cooper Union, Rhode Island School of Design, Harvard University, Nara Museum in Japan, Rubin Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara, Chicago Institute of Art, Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, Juilliard’s “Beyond the Machine” Festival, Chelsea Museum of Art, the City University of New York, the American Museum of Natural History, Lincoln Center, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Al-Bustan is pleased to have presented Kevork Mourad in a collaborative project Roads to Damascus with Kinan Abou-afach in February 2013.
MICHAELA MAJOUN is the award-winning host of the XPN Morning Show and The Women’s Music Hour on WXPN-FM. In her over 20 years there the station has grown into one of the nation’s leading noncommercial public radio stations and a pioneer in the development of the AAA (Adult Album Alternative) radio format nationally. Michaela has also been an interviewer for XPN’s national show, World Cafe with David Dye, now heard on over stations around the country, since it started two decades ago. She’s included in the On the Air: Rock and Roll and Radio exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. Michaela is WXPN’s arts maven, featuring Fall and Spring Arts Previews and the Friday Morning Arts Crawl, on the XPN Morning Show.