It’s a cold evening in January and Razan Qassar is stood among different instruments, wrapped in a winter jacket and feeling as if she might burst into tears. Razan is a violinist – and the lead musician of the Syrian National Symphony Orchestra.
The orchestra is at the Damascus Opera House in Syria to perform for the first time since last November, days before the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December. She hasn’t been back here since, and as the stage is being set up with just an hour to go until the concert starts, she is visibly shaken. The performance was to pay homage “to the martyrs and the glory of Syria” – honouring those who fought and those whose lives were lost.
“Art has nothing to do with any political situation or the general situation of the country”, says Razan, who feels emotional at seeing her colleagues again after everyone went back to their villages, uncertain of what was happening as the regime was crumbling. “Art is what lifts us off the ground; it lifts us above everything that happens on the ground. Art is the lifeblood. As soon as we announced today’s concert, the audience rushed to attend. Turning the wheel of art makes the audience feel that the country is going to be fine.”
The last concert, held two months ago, was a closing ceremony of the Days of Culture, which the Ministry of Culture used to hold annually. The new administration dissolved the Ministry of Culture and, for a short period, Dr Diala Barakat was reappointed as the Minister, before the decision was revoked days later as she was seen as someone loyal to the previous Assad regime.
Still, artists and musicians in the city took it upon themselves to organise and gather for this concert, as a sign – they say – of a new dawn. With just a few days of rehearsals, the lights are now switched on for them with Syria’s three-star flag, adjusted after the revolution’s success, symbolically displayed behind them as the orchestra start playing Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5.
As the tune changes to La Mort d’Ase (Aase’s Death) by Edvard Grieg, the screen behind the players shows the motionless body of Alan Kurdi, the Syrian toddler who drowned to death in the Mediterranean Sea along with his mother and brother in 2015. The image sparked rage and anger across the world and prompted Germany to accept a million Syrian refugees.
Showing this picture would be unthinkable two months ago. But now the audience cheer and cry, as if a sense of normality is returning to the war-torn country.
An hour later, backstage, Rama al-Basham, who also plays violin, says she had tears during the performance, as her dream of performing in a free country had finally came true. “Music is an international language, it is a language of peace,” she says. “If you play music, you are spreading peace.” Now, she says, those that had to run away from the war should be able to come back and help build the country’s new arts scene. “We want our fellow musicians who emigrated 14 years ago – because of political views or lack of security – to come back. We are one family, we are musicians. We have to build our country together.”
Across the Opera House, in the same compound, a group of acting students from the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts are rehearsing acrobatics as part of their studies. When I ask what freedom feels like, their faces light up – but while their hopes of art inspiring the country are high, uncertainty remains. “We hope that acting, and all things about art, will be something good for people to help them grow,” says Lana Alloush. “Syria is a very beautiful country [but] there are so many stories we want to tell the world about what happened here in the last 14 years,” adds her classmate, Ali Albada. “We want the world to listen to our stories. We want our voices to be heard.”
Another student, Nada Hamza, says they are also “waiting – we will see if they [the new Government] respect all different colours of Syria”. The new government, led by Ahmad al-Sharaa, has promised an inclusive approach, vowing to respect Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities but fears remain because of their Islamist background. This doesn’t appear to be a deterrent for the future actors, however. “We will not stop, whatever happens, because we love this place and our work,” says Lana. “We want to show our culture to everyone.”
“Fo a long time, the world has seen only the bad side of Syria, so we are working to show people the good side through our art,” says Nada. Their teacher, Ali Ismail, listens carefully, adding: “The artist is ultimately a human being and can create something out of nothing. We always have hope for tomorrow.”
Less than two months after the end of a brutal five-decade long authoritarian rule, art is currently not at the centre of country’s reconstruction efforts. The new administration is still scrambling to offer people safety and looks to the international community to lift the economic sanctions. It means that since the Ministry of Culture went dark, most of the wider country’s art scene consists of private or modest gatherings. Take a recent small exhibition of sculptor Mumtaz Shaib, who through his work aims to express the fatigue of Syrian people during the now-ousted leadership; or the short stories of author Rawad al-Awwam – titled A Dumb Devil – which may be set in a fictional country, but still depict a society in which fear silenced people. However, a promising future lies in the country’s young artists, such as Razan, Lana and Ali, who are cherishing that they no longer need to suppress their passion to create. Through them, the art scene continues – and, importantly, brings hope.
