Choir of Joy (Joqat al Farah) US Tour

On the 8^th of March 2010 the Choir had a gathering where all the kids, musicians and adult helpers were invited to celebrate the first anniversary of the USA trip at the Lady of Damascus Church hall.

The celebration started with a list of photos presenting the moments of joy and success in every stage of the trip starting with the flight, going to Washington DC and the great performances there “Arabesque festival opening ceremony, the Millennium stage and the Duke Ellington School of art performances“, then Detroit’s and Jacksonville’s performances, Orlando’s open stage performance and the great time we all had in Disney world before going back to Syria.

Those were the “happy” moments, but unfortunately not all the moments were “HAPPY” ones, so the Choir prepared another set of photos that showed some of the anxiety, stress, fatigue and mostly the hard working moments where a lot of “behind the scene” effort was done, in preparation for the “on stage” show.

Then Father Zihlawi gave a quick speech thanking God first of all, the Kennedy Center for putting their faith in us and thanking everybody who helped in the success of this trip.

NOW, it was the time for a surprise that everybody was waiting for. It was a recording of the ceremony of honor the First Lady of Syria granted the Choir… The First Lady chose a very important date which was the 5^th of July 2009 to celebrate Father Zihlawi’s 50^th year in priesthood, and to thank the Choir that was the result of his long and persistent work. During this ceremony the First Lady took the time to present a very special and valuable pin with the word “فخر بلدي “which means “my country’s pride” to each and every participant in this trip. It was an honor that none of us had even dreamed of.

Here is a link with some photos of this event (please excuse the quality)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLrYRbOdLPE

After all this, it was celebration time. Each group with its responsible had prepared a cake for this event and they gathered around a table and cut it together hand in hand.

Hopping we’ll have more trips to celebrate soon

Back to you our dear friends, but this time reporting from Dar Al-Assad for Culture and Arts in Damascus, where the choir, and I mean the WHOLE Choir, performed for 4 days celebrating Christmas.

As usual, with its wonderful touch, the Choir made this time of the year the most joyful and memorable with five performances four of them in Damascus between the 14^th till the 17^th of December 2009 and one in Aleppo on the 19^th. It was the kind of performance we all wait for yearly to live the joy of Jesus Christ’s divine arrival to our planet.

Though Christmas has its well known traditional songs and themes, “Al Farah Choir” still amazes us yearly with its performance, the great creativity, sincerity and spontaneity that touches our hearts and gives us the joy we need to start the New Year with lots of love and hope.

And now I can only wish each and everyone of you a very happy New Year hopping that 2010 will be a year of success, love, peace and joy to all of you, and hopefully for me too

I’m sorry for taking so long to come back to you our dear friends, but I promise to keep you updated from now on.

For the moment I want to start with an interview that was made with Father Zihlawi in Jacksonville, just a day before our departure, and would like to take this opportunity to thank Dr. Ahamed for it. I’m sorry for the delay in posting it but I just found it online…

http://www.commongroundnews.org/article.php?id=25055&lan=en&sid=1&sp=0

Keep on checking our blog cause some real interesting news will be posted very soon

I found this very interesting article about “Arabesque” festival, written by “James Zogby”, and couldn’t resist sharing it with everybody… a link to the original article is provided below and here is the paragraph that concerns the Choir… Hoping you’ll enjoy it as much as i did.

“……And so, when the curtain rose on the opening night of Arabesque, and I saw 140 Syrian children of the Al-Farah Choir, I was, in fact, overwhelmed. Thankful, that after thirty years of combating negative stereotypes and defending my heritage, I would see the day when, in my nation’s premier cultural center there would be a celebration of Arab arts and letters. The culture of my people was being recognized. I looked at the smiles and joyful movements of those youngsters and felt pride in their accomplishment. They are our little ambassadors. They, and the hundreds of others on the program who traveled thousands of miles to join the festival, were defining, better than any politicians, what it means to be an Arab, using the universal language of art……”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-zogby/arabesque_b_170640.html

Many thanks to James Zogby. The article is more than wonderful.

Unfortunately, we came to the end of the Choir’s trip, very happy for the great results we had, the wonderful impression they left in people’s minds and the health and safety of everybody, yet sad that the wonderful days we spent are over.

As far as I know the first group arrived safe and sound and the second is on its way. 

Back to where we left. The Disney performance on the 3rd of March was a great one. It was on an open stage, in the air, with people passing by and listening to the kids singing. What was really great is people’s reactions. They asked for an extra song at the end of the performance and some of them asked about the blog to write some comments for the Choir.

After finishing the performance, the Choir went to Hollywood Studios, one of Disney’s parks. I’m sorry for not adding photos but i didn’t go with them and didn’t get the chance to take some photos before they leave to Syria… You will be seeing all of them in person hopefully, in case you didn’t already.

Yesterday, the first group of the Choir left to Damascus, while the other group went for a half a day to Disney. The kids were having a blast. 

Today, the second group packed and it’s on its way hopping it arrives safe and sound…

Now, at the end of this tour, I would like to thank everybody who worked to make this dream come true; the Detroit team, the Jacksonville team, the Orlando team, all the people who volunteered their time and effort to assist the Choir during its tour, and the biggest thanks go to the Kennedy Center for inviting the Choir to perform in “Arabesque” festival, which initiated the idea of this tour. On the other end of the world I would like to thank all the parents for their support, before and after the Choir’s departure, their faith in its mission and their confidence in the Choir’s leaders. In the end, a great thank you to all the Choir’s members who volunteered a lot of their time and effort to show the whole world what Syria and the Syrians, children and adults, truly are. 

Last but not least, I apologize for all the delays in reporting. I know all parents were very anxious to hear, read and see their kids, and i’m sorry if the photos didn’t include all the kids but honestly I didn’t have a lot of time to make sure that everybody is there. Hopping that this won’t be a once in a life time tour, and that next time I will be more organized.

I’m really sorry for all the delay in reporting but there has been a lot of performances and traveling in the past week, as you all well know.

So we left Detroit in two groups, heading to Orlando on the 28th of February. the first group arriving had the chance to visit the Epcot center which is one of Disney land’s parks. We took a few rides and then watched the must see park’s fireworks cause it is also a water and laser show, all in one.

on the first of March we went to Jacksonville where the choir had a Mass at the St Ephrem Syriac Catholic Church

At night, they performed at the Ritz Theater. Although nobody advertised for this performance the theater was fully booked, and it looks like all the audience, Arabs and American, were looking for a marvelous performance, but they got more than that. At the end of the performance Father Zihlawi had a few words thanking all the efforts done to make this tour a reality, while the committee had a bouquet of flowers to thank Claudia, the conductor of the Choir.

I need to get going now, and will be giving you some more updates tonight.

I’m really sorry and i do apologize for not posting anything in the past couple of days but it’s been really busy around here.

so just a quick note now to tell you all that everybody is doing great. we came back from Jacksonville after a marvelous performance that i will talk about hopefully tomorrow, cause it’s 3am here and i think that going to sleep now is a good idea.

have a wonderful day and i promise to write a detailed report tomorrow night (Monday night that is)

I have just a quick update for parents, and Choir fans

We just got back from an absolute marvelous performance. God bless them all. 

I am sorry I don’t have photos to share, they all went back to Orlando immediately after the show was over. 

Just a little note to parents, please don’t get worried when you don’t find new info on the blog, it is not (thank God) because of anything bad; rather, a lot happening to the extent that no one literally, has any minute to spend on the blog.

All kids are happy, ready for some fun, as the most serious performances are over, but truly in a spectacular way! 

They made us really proud!

I hope (and pray) that this trip will lead to a bigger commitment to this unbelievable dream coming true! Hopefully to bigger one too! Especially as they felt first hand how important and great their message is; how people (even non Arabs) were swept by their electrifying performances!

 Hopefully they come back home with some unforgettable happy memories.

God bless all.

A short post to let you know that all is well. The Choir arrived in Orlando safe and sound.

As you can tell from the title we are now in Detroit, thank God we arrived safe and sound.

I will try to catch up on the couple of days i missed now. On the 25th of February the Choir performed in Duke Ellington School of the Arts. about 500 people attended, most of them were students. The performance was great and everybody enjoyed it, especially the teachers who’ve shown a lot of appreciation to the music and the kids to the extent that one of them told me “you brought up the Syrian in me”!!!

On our way back to the hotel we passed by The National Cathedral. It was really worth seeing.

In the evening we went to Tyson’s mall, then came back to the hotel and packed for our next day travel to Detroit.

Yesterday we left Washington DC, with all the great time, people and memories we had there and came to Detroit. Dr. Arwashan was waiting for us in the airport and had arranged all the buses to take us to the hotel. In the evening an Arabic dinner was served -tabboule, musabba7a, birak and shawerma- and a tremendous amount of the Choir’s friends came to see them and salute Abouna.

Another day has just started and you will have an update about it tonight hopefully.