An Evening in the Bahrain Embassy
by Gary Tischler
Embassy Series director and founder Jerome Barry talks a lot about an often elusive concept: "cultural diplomacy ".
At a recent concert/reception/gathering at the Embassy of Bahrain-the archipalgo kingdom of 33 low-lying islands in the heart of the Persian Gul--the idea displayed itself vividly and in convivial ways, as music, food and a diverse group of people came together to become the best kind of diplomacy, the kind that's festive, free--floating and warm.
The occasion was billed as an evening of Bahraini music, but it went far beyond that, flowing in the most natural way to bring people together over a generous offering of regional food, and music that sounded at once familiar but also displayed roots and sounds that came as much from tradition as contemporary exchanges.
One of the musicians originally scheduled to play could not arrive on time to play with Zeyad Khalifa bin Zaiman, a gifted young Bahraini artist, and so Mohamed Amir, a seasoned, multi-talented Moroccan singer-musician, filled in at the last minute. The pairing of Mohamed Amir and Zeyad Khalifa bin Zaiman turned out to be full of serendipity and well-met qualities.
The two young men appeared to have gifts that could encompass any numbers of instruments, with Amir showing his conservatory training on the Arabic flute, and Zaiman, who's played since the age of two, showed his gifts for the piano, mixing tradition with jazz stylings, then moving over to guitar and even a round on the keyboards.
Zaiman, who was Best Player in the Arab Youth Forum in Jordan and is studying at the HIgher Institute for Music In Kuwait, teamed up with Amir to play music, sing songs and evoke sounds that were oddly contemporary, while evoking the rich past of kingdoms of old, Caliphates and tribal laments, as well as a pop sensibility that transcends borders and history.
That quality showed up especially in the singing of Amir, whose voice was at once evocative and full of jaunty energy, it was pop Middle Eastern style, mixed with traditon and history.
It was a night of birthdays, of conversation, of Barry singing "Autumn Leaves", of the kind of cultural diploamcy, that doesn't need to call itself cultural diplamcy flowing comfortably and naturally from the music, bringing people together.
