Interview with Trio Joubran, Performers at Rainforest World Music Festival 2012

Palestinian act Trio Joubran is scheduled to perform at the 2012 edition of the Rainforest World Music Festival. The festival takes place July 13 – 15 this year. In addition to their live performance, the trio will participate in the music workshops that take place in the afternoon at Sarawak Cultural village.

Adnan Joubran discusses Trio Joubran’s music with World Music Central.

Can you give our readers a brief history on how the trio was formed?

The Trio’s story started with a solo brother, Samir, who’s older than the other brothers by 10 years, so he started his career before and opened a wide path for oud music in Palestine. In 2002, Samir and Wissam formed a duet group after their meeting in a concert in south of France, and had great success. This success gave me the envy to approach the oud, and I started to play. Samir was inspired by the Friday Night in San Francisco album with Paco de Lucia, Al Dimeola and John McLaughlin, and this is how we’ve put three chairs and dared to improvise together. We composed the album Randana, with what we started touring in France and Europe.

What do you consider as the essential elements of your music?

Brotherhood – since it was the first reason to our project and since brotherhood and family element in our tradition is something sacred and important to our being. More than that, knowing each other, expectations, and challenges are elements that exist in brotherhood, that’s why our music based also on improvisation. Improvisation is a big important element in our music.

Honest Inspiration too is an essential element; coming from Palestine is a big issue in our life, in each Palestinian’s life, being Palestinian is somehow a full time job. We can’t forget reality for a second and make music simply for love, light, or any other case.

Who can you cite as your main musical influences?

Personally, I’m very influenced by the biggest flamenco players, such as Paco de Lucia & Vicente Amigo.

We are influenced by many kinds of music; the classical oriental music was our reference because we were born in a home which produces this music. Being in Europe and performing in big festivals gave us the privilege to meet many important musicians and get influenced by their culture, such as India, Spain, classical western, Jazz, etc.

Tell us about your first recordings and your musical evolution.

Talking about the first recording Randana – 2004, it was such a big experience and challenge, knowing that there wasn’t Oud Trio before we did form this trio, so we knew that whatever we will deposit it will take its place, and grow. We had to respect all the tradition, and be different, compose something good so it will be alive for eternity, we had to avoid all what is pure western and we had this music which was experimental for a time, and emotional for another, virtuous for a time and so pure for another.

After the success of this album, we understood that it can work! So we were more relaxed to make music for the sound, for the beauty of the moment, for the feelings… for the poetry. We were inspired from the great poet Mahmoud Darwich, and we tried to create the metaphoric music, the reason why we named our later CD – Majaz – which means Metaphor. We refused the World Music naming , so we tried to name it metaphoric music, in this album we met the great percussionist Youssef Hbeisch who gave another dimension for our work , which completed the musical development also.

In our last album we invited a special guest a great friend above all and most important an amazing musician! Dhafer Youssef, who with his voice had transformed our music to magical and gave it another dimension of spirituality. During our career we were lucky to meet many artists who give a bit for our musical knowledge.

Can you share some information about the program you’ll present at the Rainforest World Music Festival?

Usually this year we play a mix between our last two albums, Majaz and AsFar , but in the same time when we go to festivals at the last moment sometimes we change the program according to the atmosphere of the public, the time we perform, the stage, the ambiance of the place. We are improvisers, and we love it! So be ready to everything!

How’s the current music scene in Palestine?

The music in Palestine, even talking about all kinds of art is in its peak! we are very glad that we have helped this musical revolution and artistic spirit grow, we are very proud of all the Palestinian artist, we have an amazing percentage of great artists who are becoming known, all this because of the need to exist, we feel as Palestinians that our weapon is our culture and art, our existence is the most threatening weapon for the Israeli occupation, they are trying to delete the word “Palestine”, but our culture and language and art is making them remember the past! They can hear Palestine in each note we play

If you could gather any musicians or musical groups to collaborate with whom would that be?

Wow.. many! .. But I know that the trio has been working on drawing the musical identity of the trio and now we are ready to work with great musicians… good musicians.. After all, when you love someone’s music, or person or art, you can do everything with him. The secret is the love..

Do you have any upcoming projects to share with our readers?

We are working on a limited edition package which includes all our CDs, and few bonus tracks and videos, which will be out in Christmas, and will be starting to perform it at the Olympia in the 7th of February 2013 in Paris!

Discography

Tamaas (2002)
Randana (2005)
Majaz (2007)
À l’ombre des mots (2008)
AsFar, with Dhafer Youssef (2011)

Official website: http://www.letriojoubran.com

Rainforest World Music Festival: rwmf.net

For travel to Rainforest World Music Festival and accommodation: sarawaktourism.com