A Collective Song: Music to Make Hearts Sing

Dear Friends of A Collective Song Music Center,

We are proud to inform you that thanks to your help, we are on our way to making this music center a reality! As of now, we have raised about $13,000! We have been able to do so thanks to you, our donors, and grants, which include a Microsoft YouthSpark matching grant.   I am also happy to tell you that I am back at Rebuilding Alliance and I’ll be here this summer to work through the details to launch the Collective Song Music Center.

Over the past few months, we were able to reach out to more people and share this goal with them, with superb results. On May 3rd, I held a benefit concert at my school. There were fifteen excellent performers at the concert, ranging from professionals to students. The concert was a success, and embodied what we hope this music center will give the people of Al Aqaba.

• Zach Chun, a student clarinetist and one of the performers at the benefit concert, said, “The gift of music is something everyone deserves.  Through Lina's project we are able to bring more moments of happiness into the lives of others.”
  
  
• Award-winning qanun player Ali Paris, who also performed at the benefit concert, said, “Lina’s dedication to this great cause is very powerful, and with her help and others’ who have the same level of global appreciation of world causes, peace will spread and wars will end."

Because of my concert, I was invited to speak at the Santa Clara County’s 14th Annual Palestinian Day on May 15th, which took us a step further in our path to creating the music center.

We are excited to begin our next steps toward implementing the center as soon as possible. Our upcoming goals include:

1. Arranging for a teacher--The Edward Said Conservatory of Music in Ramallah has expressed interest in providing a music teacher for the center. Providing a teacher will make a world of a difference not only in the children’s experience, but in the long-term effects that the music center will have on the village.
2. Confirming the location of the Collective Song Music Center at the Ibn Rush'd Library in Al Aqaba,
3. Arranging for the village to interview the music teacher.
4. Purchasing or renting equipment (instruments, music books, etc.) to arrive in Al Aqaba by the end of the summer--Although we hope to raise about $22,000 for this project, we have already raised enough to begin tangibly creating the center in Al Aqaba.

World-famous neuroscientist Oliver Sacks, whose book Musicophilia was an inspiration for this project, wrote in his book, “Rhythm and its entrainment of movement (and often emotion), its power to ‘move’ people, in both senses of the word, may well have had a crucial cultural and economic function in human evolution, bringing people together, producing a sense of collectivity and community.” We hope this music center will function in this way, acting as a constructive outlet will be a practical way to promote peace and bring the community together. We are immensely grateful for your support; it is thanks to you that this project is happening! We look forward to keeping you updated on how the project is progressing.

Best wishes,

Lina Karamali

Links:

• The Palo Alto Weekly's article about the music center
• Musicophilia