Q Life Magazine Issue 7 | Page 48

Issue 7 Qataris Abroad specific to pearl diving. There is a specific percussion the fact that music speaks any language, but then pattern for when the boat leaves the shore, for when you will hear an accent or a dialect that is distinctive the boat is coming in, for when they’re lamenting to the origins of the identity of that instrument or their situation, they’re looking for the pearls, they find person.” the pearls, they don’t find the pearls. And on top of that, there’s always a gentleman chanting.” She adds: “Of course, individuality is very important. That’s what colours us. That’s what makes us “So when I started to understand the sounds and interesting. That’s what makes us want to interact the framework, I understood how to incorporate with other people. It’s just developing the tools that on a more modern neo-classical orchestration to communicate regardless of the differences, to to make that accessible and to tell that story to an celebrate the differences. That’s the role of music. international audience.” That’s what I’ve been trying to do. That’s the reason I She recently performed at the 2019 UN Day Concert want to tell the story of my country, Qatar.” in New York, and took inspiration from the children she met. She says: “I was asked by the UN to write a song to create a campaign with Qatar Charity for a refugee camp in Jordan. They were dealing primarily with Palestinian refugees. It was to create food One of the things that I’ve personally taken away from Qatar was the pearl diving tradition. I’ve incorporated that into my music to provide a new sound, a sound with a level of authenticity that is in demand in classical music with a character and a texture. baskets during Ramadan. I went with them to Jordan Dana Al Fardan, Contemporary Composer “My recent concert in New York, at the UN, featured a and I was absolutely blown away by the children that I met. They are highly ambitious, highly intelligent children, but life had dealt them a very difficult blow. And yet, they were incredibly optimistic.” She is a musician, but also a businesswoman, and says: “My mandate is generally preserving Arab heritage in a way that is exportable to international markets.” range of different sounds, different soloists, different instruments that are universal in their scope but that have a very distinctly Arabian feel. The message is 48 49