Above: Hearts For Gaza relief packs getting through to where they are needed.
Chloe Charody-creative, composer and show-maker is the hardworking and brave founder of the successful Gazan aid team Hearts for Gaza. Her efforts are a significant global force and special proof of the support for many people and causes that can be inspired from the Australian Arts community.
Grand-daughter of Jewish Holocaust survivors- her work in this outreach co-ordinates four regional teams across Gaza to supply aid and to activities to local families and children.
These teams’ work on foot and bikes makes it to where established aid organisations are blocked. This is support that gives food, medical help, activities and morale boosts for families war zones.
Food, water, medicine, clothing from within the area where aid organisations can’t reach. Hearts for Gaza received donations through a Chuffed fundraising project:
https://www.chuffed.org/project/109308-hearts-for-gaza
This concert, food and art fundraiser was a heartwarming, successful and high quality event. It was well attended at the Gumbramorra hall of the Addison Road Community Centre.
Above: Chloe Chung and Maxeem Georges blended cultures and instruments well throughout this concert.
Following a powerful doco screening in the work of Chloe’s teams, Maxeem Georges, Syrian oud player expertly shared Syrian scale plus musical form opened with Dream Collective’s collaborator and effective cultural blender, flautist Chloe Chung, start the concert part of the afternoon.
This opening displayed a fine chemistry between the pair from different backgrounds across the contrasts of this piece in engaging unison or contrary directions, melody and accompaniment plus imitation as well as similar motion for the instruments from diverse cultural origins working as one.
Keyna Wilkins and cellist of Palestinian background Antonio Aguilar performed next. This cellist’s grandfather was in a famous oud band, and Aguilar’s ensemble sensitivities are equally stellar.
Keyna’s work in 3 sections, following the traditional Western Music model, was titled “I’m Bisan From Gaza And I’m Still Alive”. This new music offering was a compelling duo work with a programmatic reference to the survival of a Palestinian journalist and their colourful, courageous online posts.
Above: Cellist Antonio Aguilar and composer-pianist Keyna Wilkins.
The tenacity of media, the fragility of survival in a war zone was warmly offered up using a variety of traditional and fresh compositional plus performance techniques.
This piece unwound and bound us in focussed and tender, timeless, modern cello gesturing and keyboard contributions. This was a memorable heart-empowering offering from the pen and hands of Keyna Wilkins-establishing herslf in this city and country as a frontrunner -supplying and inexhaustible, inimitable, prolific output as a composer, performer and humanitarian.
The intertwining of cello and piano melodies touched our bruised hearts, keeping them bouyant. Keyna’s writing and playing here alongside this expressive string player was a beautiful band aid to past and continued horrors that the surviving work by Hearts For Gaza is trying to address.
Pianist Pavle Cajic’s penetrating intimacy with plaintive gentle spirals took us beyond the hurt of recent histories.
This playing transported our listening across exciting genre-blending style-defying harmonies and stunningly alternating shapes.
Above: (l to r) Chloe Chung on saxophone, Gazan percussionist Hala Samak, Maxeem Georges on oud, additional vocalists, Maissa Alameddine, cellist Antonio Aguilar.
Trio playing from Pavle, Hala Samak (an exciting percussionist from Gaza) and Maissa Alameddine’s penetrating chanting brought us the first hint of this concert’s vocal swagger. This ensemble wowed us with a precise and detailed instrumental tapestry.
More exposure to Syrian scales (maqam) and rhtymic organisation (iqa), plus Syrian musical forms and heart came with a switch to alto sax for Chloe Chung and Maxeem Georges’ eloquent flexibilities on the oud.
The members of Dreambox Collective (Chloe and Pavle), with their exciting plus dreamy collaborators provided a high quality tapestry for us to support, lean into and wrap around our hearts
The ensemble musical solidarity that concluded this concert took the form of a full-cast sextet. The sextet was further supported by an additional three male vocalists.
This final line up, tracing important and entertaining songs after interval was an amalgam with heart-warming intricacies, more beautiful chants from Maissa Alameddine, and cross cultural co-operation, Sydney-style, from all featured instrumentalists in this special benefit afternoon.
This fundraiser, complete with food, art, drinks and joint hopes for a ceasefire was a highlight of this long weekend in our fortunate outpost of peace.
