On August 25th, around 300 young people, including Syrian and Palestinian refugees, will turn the rooftops and street of the Qasqas neighborhood in Beirut into a vast, interactive stage from which they will perform a series of musical pieces accompanied by musicians from the globally renowned Silkroad Ensemble.
The musical pieces have all been composed and created over the past year by these young people as part of a Music For Development project, designed and implemented by Right To Play in partnership with the Silkroad Ensemble.
The concert, will mark the culmination of the first phase of this project. The project brought at-risk and vulnerable young people, living in and around Beirut, together with professional musicians from the Silkroad Ensemble as well as young local music coaches. Through different forms of music, the project aimed to provide a platform and a vehicle with which the youth could develop critical life skills, express their challenges and advocate for their rights.
All of the youth come from extremely difficult, high poverty areas with high incidences of drug abuse, violence, diseases and environmental degradation. Many of these young people have lost their voices and their hope. The Music for Development project has created an opportunity for them to explore their fears and face their challenges through the transformative power of music.
The concert will provide a platform from which, through their own music, they will amplify their stories and celebrate their progress.
Please see more event details below.
When: Sunday, August 25th
4:00 pm Start of event
4:30 pm Silkroad Ensemble Performance
5:00 pm Youth performance
5:30 pm Al Kamandjati performance
6:00 pm Coach certification and jam session
Where: Parc, Qasqas, Beirut https://goo.gl/maps/vVZbbpbTxFGqCi5p6
Who: Youth Leaders participating in the Music for Development project
Silkroad artists: Kinan Azmeh, Jeffrey Beecher, Layale Chaker, Maya Hobeika, Yo-Yo Ma, Amr Selim, Shane Shanahan, Preeti Vasudevan, and Kaoru Watanabe
Jeffrey Beecher and Shane Shanahan, Co-Artistic Directors, Silkroad
Kevin Frey, CEO, Right To Play International
Notes for Media:
Right To Play and Silkroad key partners and spokespeople will be available for media interviews. Yo-Yo Ma will not be available for media. Please RSVP your attendance to the contacts below.
About Right To Play
Right To Play is a global organization that protects, educates and empowers children to rise. We work with children in some of the most difficult and dangerous places on earth, helping them to stay in school and graduate, to resist exploitation and overcome prejudice, to prevent disease and to heal from war and abuse.
For more than 20 years, we have delivered programs with impact in both development and humanitarian contexts. As pioneers in a unique approach to learning, both inside and outside of the classroom, we harness play, one of the most fundamental forces in a child’s life, to help children dismantle barriers and embrace opportunities. We are the only global development organization focused exclusively on using the power of play to transform children’s lives.
We reach 2.3 million children each year in 15 countries around the world. By collaborating with teachers, governments, communities and parents, we unlock children’s potential, enabling them to make positive and healthy choices and to create better futures for themselves, their families and their societies.
About Silkroad
Yo-Yo Ma conceived Silkroad in 1998 as a reminder that even as rapid globalization resulted in division, it brought extraordinary possibilities for working together. Seeking to understand this dynamic, he began to learn about the historical Silk Road, recognizing in it a model for productive cultural collaboration, for the exchange of ideas and tradition alongside commerce and innovation. And in a radical experiment, he brought together musicians from the lands of the Silk Road to co-create a new artistic idiom, a musical language founded in difference, a metaphor for the benefits of a more connected world.
The Grammy award-winning Silkroad Ensemble has been at the core of Silkroad’s work to build a more hopeful and inclusive world since 2000. These artists represent dozens of nationalities and artistic traditions, from Spain and Japan to Syria and the United States. Today, Silkroad artists seek and practice cultural collaboration in many forms, creating and presenting new music, teacher and musician training workshops, and residency programs in schools, museums, and communities.
Silkroad has recorded seven albums. Sing Me Home, which won the 2016 Grammy for Best World Music Album was developed and recorded alongside the documentary feature The Music of Strangers, from Oscar-winning director Morgan Neville.
Media contact information:
Samar Faysal, Media Outreach Consultant samarfaysal@gmail.com
Jessica Shuttleworth, Acting Director of Marketing, Silkroad jessica@silkroad.org
Michael Rajzman, Director, Marketing and Communications, Canada mrajzman@righttoplay.com
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