Music:
Member Since: 4/27/2007
Band Members:
Influences: My grandmother's songs, Alrahabani music-Fayroz, Marcedis Sosa, Mekes Theiodorakis, Tchaikovsky, Latin American music, Jazz music, Muslim and Christian religious music
Amal Murkus in the news!
This is the text from an article which appeared in “Haaretz†newspaper (www.Haaretz.com)
Songs for which folks? By Ben Shalev
Halfway through the month of Ramadan, about two months ago, Amal Murkus was supposed to give a debut concert for her new album, "Nana ya nana," at Kafr Kara. But then activists of the Islamic Movement began to lobby for the show's cancellation.
"People called me and said, 'There are objections to your singing during [the holy month of] Ramadan,'" Murkus says. "I refused to cancel. I knew that this was not the real reason, since singing during Ramadan is not forbidden. I suppose that the people from the Islamic Movement are bothered by my social agenda. I criticize not only the Jews, but also what is happening in my own society. I call for the liberation and empowerment of women. I believe that women hold the key - if they do not progress, society will not progress. But the Islamic Movement does not want women to progress. It wants us to remain in the dark."
Murkus is experienced when it comes to conflicts with clerics. Six years ago, under pressure from Islamic figures, her participation in a memorial service for the Arab citizens killed in clashes with Israeli security forces in October, 2000 was canceled. Five years ago, by contrast, she was supposed to perform in Tamra, "and at the mosques they called out to people not to go to the concert. But they just gave me publicity, and the concert was packed," she laughs.
Yet, at Kafr Kara, her opponents proved more powerful than her. She claims that after the owner of the concert hall received threats that his place would be torched if she performed there, he decided to cancel the show. The concert was moved to the nearby town of Ara, but the same thing happened. As soon as the posters advertising the venue were put up, the pressure and the threats began; a day before the concert, after a sound check had already been done, the owner of the hall decided to cancel.
"Some Islamists approached him and said, 'If the concert takes place, we are not responsible for the damage your property will incur,'" recalls Murkus.
In the end, the show was held at Givat Haviva, a seminar facility of the left-wing Hashomer Hatzair youth movement. "It was a great concert, lots of people came, and I was especially happy to see Muslim women wearing headscarves in the audience. I felt that they had come to show solidarity with me," says Murkus, but adds: "I was hurt by the whole thing. Not by the Islamic activists, but by the local politicians, who folded under the pressure and did not insist that the concert be held despite the threats."
'All by myself'
If the Islamic Movement finds Murkus' social messages upsetting, many Jews, she says, are disconcerted by her national pride and her insistent description of herself as a "Palestinian singer." "It happens everywhere in the world," she explains. "When a minority holds on to its cultural identity, the majority feels threatened.
"I once gave a concert with [popular Israeli singer] Rita in Acre, and when she came onstage the announcer simply said, 'Rita!' I'd be happy if they just said 'Amal!' too, but that does not happen. People always feel a need to explain my presence, and they find all kinds of definitions, I don't know where they get them: 'A singer loved by Israeli audiences,' 'A singer who has collaborated with famous Israeli artists,' 'A singer who sings for peace,' 'A singer of folksongs.' The songs of which folk? That does not need to be said. Let's leave that open; maybe they're Mexican folksongs."
Her 1998 debut album, in which she collaborated with Alon Olearchik and other Israeli musicians, was distributed by a large record company, but since then she has worked independently. "I produce, market, open the box office, advertise in the paper, get sponsors, copy-write the ads, put up the posters, all by myself, and for nine years every one of my concerts has been sold out," she says.
But although her shows do sell out, independent production and distribution mean that Murkus' music does not reach a large audience. She is scheduled to meet soon with representatives of the Hatav Hashmini record label, to see whether the company might distribute her new CD. At the moment, there are only a few places where it can be bought: the record store Studio Cassette in Nazareth, the Fattoush cafe in Haifa, the Yafa cafe in Jaffa, the market at Kfar Yassif, where Murkus lives, and through her Myspace Web site (www.myspace.com/amalmurkus). This is unfortunate, even galling: A beautiful, rich and complex CD like "Nana ya nana" should be available at Israel's leading record stores.
In her previous albums, Murkus included only one folksong or two; why did she decide to focus exclusively on folk music this time? There were several reasons, she says. "First of all, I have a personal motive. Music with deep roots has a charm that no modern song can have, some ingenious kind of simplicity, and I believe that every singer, when he or she feels ready, wants to sing folksongs. I felt that I was ready, and I wanted to get to this stage and feel secure in it.
"But there was also something else. Folksongs, and especially Palestinian folksongs, have a lot of sadness in them, and working on them led me to connect with the sources of sadness inside myself. It's a sadness I can't explain. I had a happy childhood, all of my life I've felt complete, but when I come to sing, the tone of my voice is sad. And tears come easily to me, even onstage. A lovely solo performance of a kanun (zither) is enough to make me burst into tears. I think it is a sadness that I inherited from the women before me, my mother's sadness, my grandmother's sadness."
The desire to sing folksongs also had a cultural-political motivation. "I have a strong desire to strengthen my people's cultural roots," Murkus says. "Most of the time we import our culture. Many Arabs think: We do not have folksongs, so let's bring songs from Lebanon, from Egypt. It's not true. We have folksongs, but we are not sufficiently aware of them. If you ask me what I would like most to accompany the songs in the new CD, I dream of children from Kfar Yassif or Kafr Kara dancing debka to them at their graduation party."
While many recordings of Palestinian folksongs exist, "they are always of poor quality, with minimum accompaniment, at most a darbouka [a Middle Eastern drum] and a flute, and the singing has no personal expression. These songs have not been awarded with the love they deserve," Murkus says. She and her co-creators (producer and adapter Nassim Dakwar, producer Moshe Daboul and the musicians who play the instruments) gave the songs an impressive artistic depth. But Murkus did not stop there. Not only did she dress the songs in modern garb, she practically reinvented them by creating bold and surprising connections between songs and, in some cases, by writing brand-new melodies.
The title song is a case in point. "Nana ya nana" is a wedding song that marks the family's parting from the bride. Murkus and her collaborators adapted it into an art song, including new transitions; but they also added another wedding song to it, "Tajaliyeh" ("Revelation"). "This is one of the most popular songs. It was sung at my grandmother's wedding, and it will be sung at my daughter's wedding," Murkus says. "But there is something embarrassing about the text. The bride has to be a virgin, clean, pure, to prepare herself for her husband. I dislike this male chauvinism, so I decided to leave out the text and keep only the wonderful melody."
In the case of "Asmar," she decided to heighten the song's eroticism. "'Asmar' is a song about a woman who is burning to be with her dark-skinned love. She wants to kidnap him, to fly away with him. I decided to attach to it a song about a girl who shamelessly boasts of her beauty. She says to her mother, 'Mother, I want to have 100 [men]. Twenty to bring me water, 20 to bring wood, 20 to prepare my eye makeup, and so on. The opposite of the submissive woman."
Nazarene women
The oldest song in the album, "Qata'En An-Nasrawiyat" ("As Nazarene Women Crossed"), is from the 17th or 18th century. Murkus heard it as a girl, when she was 12 or 13. She remembered the tune ("I don't forget melodies, even if I've only heard them once") but not the lyrics, which she found in a Tawfiq Ziad collection of old songs.
Murkus: "It is a song of pride about Nazarene women. It tells of a group of women who were the servants of a nobleman and, after some catastrophe, had to return to Nazareth through the Jezreel Valley. The lyrics say, 'There were pregnant women among them, and nursing women and virgins. They crossed the Jezreel Valley, and when they were done, the tears spilled out.'"
Hebrew speakers who listen to "Nana ya nana" will not be able to discern its many layers - among other reasons, because the CD cover does not include a Hebrew or English translation of the lyrics. Why, we ask the singer.
"First of all, even if there was a translation, you would not be able to understand the meaning without knowing the context," Murkus explains. "Besides, you don't always need to understand the lyrics. I don't need to understand what Haris Alexiou or Mercedes Sosa are singing to be moved by them, and I'm sure that even if I didn't understand what Zohar Argov, Chava Alberstein or John Baez were singing, they would still move me. I must say that people in England or in Holland have never said to me that they feel they are missing something because they do not understand what I am singing about. This happens mainly with Israelis: 'Oh, it's in Arabic, I don't understand it.' So listen better, and maybe you'll find that my voice conveys something universal."
Sounds Like: Amal Murkus, of course!
Record Label: 8 note
Type of Label: Indie
