KUALA LUMPUR, 24 March 2018:
April Centrone’s love for Arabic music began in 2005 when she was introduced to the magical sound of the gambus, played by a Palestinian man at a concert.
This fuelled the 34-year-old multi-instrumentalist from New York to take up Arabic music and theory studies at the Simon Shaheen’s Arabic Music Retreat in the same year, where she focused on ‘ud (Arabic lute), buzuq (Arabic long-necked lute), violin and percussion under her mentor Lebanese/Palestinian percussionist Michel Baklouk Merhej.
Since then, the masters degree graduate in forensic psychology from John Jay College, New York City has been performing with renowned Arab artistes such as Marcel Khalife, Ziad Rahbani, Bassam Saba, Charbel Rouhana and Najib Shaheen.
In 2007, Centrone co-founded the New York Arabic Orchestra and became its executive director.
Describing Arabic music as “an incredibly rich and beautiful music”, she said the formation of the orchestra was “designed to give Americans from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds an opportunity to perform and learn the Arabic musical”.
After appearing as a guest on the Nine11 programme broadcast on Bernama News Channel, she said her love for Arabic music had also led her to Lebanon in 2013, and to work with Palestinians and Syrians at a refugee camp until 2016, under her project Juthoor – an Arabic music and language vehicle for refugees and underprivileged youth.
“We taught classical music to the children in the refugee camp, together with Arabic language and poetry. The reason is that in a war, we may lose families and home, but the real dangerous situation is we might be losing culture and tradition that is held together by music.”
Centrone said traditional Arabic musical instruments also played an important role in helping children to develop their psychological skills.
“Music is some sort of therapy and teaching music to children helps them to share their feelings with us while playing the instrument. It is not rocket science but to understand music creates therapy in the mind,” she reasoned.
Recently, Centrone recorded her debut solo album entitled New Moon to be released in spring, with her performing on drumset, riqq (Arabic tambourine), bendir (North African frame drum), ‘ud (Arabic lute), buzuq (Arabic long-neck lute), guitar and piano.
The American is here for her Malaysia Tour 2018 – she will kick off her performance tonight at the LifeBeats Concert with Dewangga Sakti at Talent Lounge, Menara Mustapha Kamal before taking part at the Acoustic Night: Meaning My Music with Andy Flop Poppy and Syech Razi on Tuesday night at Markas Kota Damansara.
On Thursday morning, she will conduct a Music Therapy Workshop at Galeri Petronas, Suria KLCC, before moving on to Ipoh for a performance at a meet-and-greet jamming session with Faris Fuad and the Konfederates at PBUY Store on Friday night.
She will also hold a music therapy workshop at PBUY workshop on Saturday morning and at night, performing at Beats & Poetry at Rumah Ipoh.
For more details, logon to the April Centrone Malaysia Tour 2018 Facebook page.
– Bernama