“How are you, really?”
It was a question in an email from Lebanese pianist Rami Khalife, son of revered composer Marcel Khalife, that stopped Adnan Joubran in his tracks
As a solo artist and part of the fraternal group Le Trio Joubran, the musician has been processing wave after wave of grief on the road and in the studio. And the email, received amid the devastation of Gaza where more than 60,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel, elicited, even demanded, a pause.
Speaking on The National's music podcast Tarab from his home in Paris, Joubran admits there is no answer.
“It is tough not only for me as a Palestinian, but also I think for all of us as human beings,” Joubran says ahead of his Wednesday performance at Together for Palestine. The benefit concert will be held at London’s O2 Arena with Brian Eno, Damon Albarn and Faraj Suleiman among many others.
For two decades, Joubran has carried the joy and burden of being a Palestinian artist – celebrated in concert halls worldwide as part of Le Trio Joubran with his brothers Samir and Wissam. They've recorded with Coldplay, collaborated with Roger Waters, spent years touring with Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish and referenced his writing in their own recordings.
What began as an odyssey to present Palestinian music and culture, stripped of politics, has become anything but. Since the October 7 attacks nearly two years ago, every song and every stage has been fiercely channelled through Palestine’s struggle for self-determination.
“At the beginning, we were refusing to be called political. We were frustrated, like, why do you call us political? We are just musicians. But now, we cannot avoid it,” Joubran says. “The tragedy is too big and the silence is too dangerous. As Palestinians, even if we want to be just musicians, we cannot. The responsibility is there, and we have to carry it.”
That responsibility has also reshaped his experience of the live circuit. Invitations from European festivals and concert halls that once welcomed the group have now significantly dried up. “Many concert halls refuse to welcome any Palestinian musician because they are scared of showing their belonging to the Palestinian case,” Joubran says. “Even though those theatres want to welcome us purely for our music, they're not capable of doing it.”
Hence the significance of the Together for Palestine concert, co-organised by British composer Eno alongside Khaled Ziada, founder and director of the London Palestine Film Festival, and British film and TV producer Tracey Seaward. For Joubran, its importance is clear: “This gathering of artists serves as a resounding declaration that we can no longer remain silent,” he says. “It is a call to action, a demand for justice for the Palestinian people, for the protection of journalists' lives and freedom of expression, and for an end to the ongoing humanitarian crisis.”
The event marks another opportunity for Joubran to collaborate with Eno, a long-time supporter of the Palestinian cause whom he views as a hero. Eno has been publicly outspoken on Palestine for years, from co-founding the organisation Artists for Palestine UK in 2015 to creating sound installations at Banksy’s Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem.
That multidisciplinary approach, Joubran says, has made each meeting with Eno educative. “I sit down and just listen to him telling me things,” he says. “I remember one day Brian called me and said: 'Adnan, can you come? I’m working on a melody that I need your help with on a percussion part.' And it was so amazing, just spending the day with him in his studio, feeling how we work similarly at times.”
Joubran's craft was honed as a child in the family home in Nazareth. His father, Hatem, is a luthier and his mother, Ibtissam Hanna Joubran, is a singer. With his brothers already performing as a duo, Joubran was the last to join, enamoured by their stories of touring abroad. He composed the trio’s first piece, Hawas, which featured on the group’s 2005 debut album Randana.
A key motif throughout the trio’s work is the poetry of Darwish, a former collaborator. After Darwish died, the group used his recorded readings in their music or had them recited by others such as Roger Waters, who appeared on Carry the Earth from the trio's 2018 album The Long March.
“It was amazing to just go in his house and watch him make us pasta and bring his guitar and play something,” Joubran recalls. “I filmed him reciting Darwish at [famed London studio] Abbey Road and from the first take, I had tears on my face. It was as powerful as it could be. Just spot on.”
That sense of intimacy flows into Joubran’s forthcoming album, At Surface, already trailed by the haunting track Before & After. Its ambient soundscapes and plaintive, almost sputtering oud lines are meant to resemble a life changed by war. Along with the London show, they form part of the answer to Khalifa’s email about his state of mind.
“That is hundred per cent engaged music, purely made for my healing process. I think art is not here to answer questions, but to ask them. Being direct now is a social and human responsibility,” he says.
“As artists, our responsibility lies not in impressing, but in expressing, moving and motivating people to take action. The stage is the safest place,” he adds. “My safe place is the music. Where there's no barriers, no judgment.”
Tickets to Together for Palestine have sold out, but the show will be livestreamed on Brian Eno's YouTube channel
Dhadak
Director: Shashank Khaitan
Starring: Janhvi Kapoor, Ishaan Khattar, Ashutosh Rana
Stars: 3
UAE v Ireland
1st ODI, UAE win by 6 wickets
2nd ODI, January 12
3rd ODI, January 14
4th ODI, January 16
Gulf Under 19s final
Dubai College A 50-12 Dubai College B
Fixtures
Friday Leganes v Alaves, 10.15pm; Valencia v Las Palmas, 12.15am
Saturday Celta Vigo v Real Sociedad, 8.15pm; Girona v Atletico Madrid, 10.15pm; Sevilla v Espanyol, 12.15am
Sunday Athletic Bilbao v Getafe, 8.15am; Barcelona v Real Betis, 10.15pm; Deportivo v Real Madrid, 12.15am
Monday Levante v Villarreal, 10.15pm; Malaga v Eibar, midnight
F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
The Disaster Artist
Director: James Franco
Starring: James Franco, Dave Franco, Seth Rogan
Four stars
Kathryn Hawkes of House of Hawkes on being a good guest (because we’ve all had bad ones)
- Arrive with a thank you gift, or make sure you have one for your host by the time you leave.
- Offer to buy groceries, cook them a meal or take your hosts out for dinner.
- Help out around the house.
- Entertain yourself so that your hosts don’t feel that they constantly need to.
- Leave no trace of your stay – if you’ve borrowed a book, return it to where you found it.
- Offer to strip the bed before you go.
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Retail gloom
Online grocer Ocado revealed retail sales fell 5.7 per cen in its first quarter as customers switched back to pre-pandemic shopping patterns.
It was a tough comparison from a year earlier, when the UK was in lockdown, but on a two-year basis its retail division, a joint venture with Marks&Spencer, rose 31.7 per cent over the quarter.
The group added that a 15 per cent drop in customer basket size offset an 11.6. per cent rise in the number of customer transactions.
Hunger and Fury: The Crisis of Democracy in the Balkans
Jasmin Mujanović, Hurst Publishers
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The struggle is on for active managers
David Einhorn closed out 2018 with his biggest annual loss ever for the 22-year-old Greenlight Capital.
The firm’s main hedge fund fell 9 per cent in December, extending this year’s decline to 34 percent, according to an investor update viewed by Bloomberg.
Greenlight posted some of the industry’s best returns in its early years, but has stumbled since losing more than 20 per cent in 2015.
Other value-investing managers have also struggled, as a decade of historically low interest rates and the rise of passive investing and quant trading pushed growth stocks past their inexpensive brethren. Three Bays Capital and SPO Partners & Co., which sought to make wagers on undervalued stocks, closed in 2018. Mr Einhorn has repeatedly expressed his frustration with the poor performance this year, while remaining steadfast in his commitment to value investing.
Greenlight, which posted gains only in May and October, underperformed both the broader market and its peers in 2018. The S&P 500 Index dropped 4.4 per cent, including dividends, while the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index, an early indicator of industry performance, fell 7 per cent through December. 28.
At the start of the year, Greenlight managed $6.3 billion in assets, according to a regulatory filing. By May, the firm was down to $5.5bn.
Muslim Council of Elders condemns terrorism on religious sites
The Muslim Council of Elders has strongly condemned the criminal attacks on religious sites in Britain.
It firmly rejected “acts of terrorism, which constitute a flagrant violation of the sanctity of houses of worship”.
“Attacking places of worship is a form of terrorism and extremism that threatens peace and stability within societies,” it said.
The council also warned against the rise of hate speech, racism, extremism and Islamophobia. It urged the international community to join efforts to promote tolerance and peaceful coexistence.
Mobile phone packages comparison
AI traffic lights to ease congestion at seven points to Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Street
The seven points are:
Shakhbout bin Sultan Street
Dhafeer Street
Hadbat Al Ghubainah Street (outbound)
Salama bint Butti Street
Al Dhafra Street
Rabdan Street
Umm Yifina Street exit (inbound)
The National Archives, Abu Dhabi
Founded over 50 years ago, the National Archives collects valuable historical material relating to the UAE, and is the oldest and richest archive relating to the Arabian Gulf.
Much of the material can be viewed on line at the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive - https://www.agda.ae/en
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Lexus LX700h specs
Engine: 3.4-litre twin-turbo V6 plus supplementary electric motor
Power: 464hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 790Nm from 2,000-3,600rpm
Transmission: 10-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 11.7L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh590,000
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
One in nine do not have enough to eat
Created in 1961, the World Food Programme is pledged to fight hunger worldwide as well as providing emergency food assistance in a crisis.
One of the organisation’s goals is the Zero Hunger Pledge, adopted by the international community in 2015 as one of the 17 Sustainable Goals for Sustainable Development, to end world hunger by 2030.
The WFP, a branch of the United Nations, is funded by voluntary donations from governments, businesses and private donations.
Almost two thirds of its operations currently take place in conflict zones, where it is calculated that people are more than three times likely to suffer from malnutrition than in peaceful countries.
It is currently estimated that one in nine people globally do not have enough to eat.
On any one day, the WFP estimates that it has 5,000 lorries, 20 ships and 70 aircraft on the move.
Outside emergencies, the WFP provides school meals to up to 25 million children in 63 countries, while working with communities to improve nutrition. Where possible, it buys supplies from developing countries to cut down transport cost and boost local economies.
Gertrude Bell's life in focus
A feature film
At one point, two feature films were in the works, but only German director Werner Herzog’s project starring Nicole Kidman would be made. While there were high hopes he would do a worthy job of directing the biopic, when Queen of the Desert arrived in 2015 it was a disappointment. Critics panned the film, in which Herzog largely glossed over Bell’s political work in favour of her ill-fated romances.
A documentary
A project that did do justice to Bell arrived the next year: Sabine Krayenbuhl and Zeva Oelbaum’s Letters from Baghdad: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Gertrude Bell. Drawing on more than 1,000 pieces of archival footage, 1,700 documents and 1,600 letters, the filmmakers painstakingly pieced together a compelling narrative that managed to convey both the depth of Bell’s experience and her tortured love life.
Books, letters and archives
Two biographies have been written about Bell, and both are worth reading: Georgina Howell’s 2006 book Queen of the Desert and Janet Wallach’s 1996 effort Desert Queen. Bell published several books documenting her travels and there are also several volumes of her letters, although they are hard to find in print. Original documents are housed at the Gertrude Bell Archive at the University of Newcastle, which has an online catalogue.
