Sometimes when I’m bored at the office I turn on the voice recorder and start singing. But the whole issue that I’m mean enough to sing for the

Arabic music icons. Let me know your thoughts:

and for Zaki Naseef by  kermit

I’m singing for Fairouz! by  kermit

YouTube and the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival have partnered to give the best young creative minds a chance to attend Cannes and compete in the Young Lions Film Competition.

At midnight on 15 May (GMT), YouTube will release a brief on www.youtube.com/canneslions for a 60-second ad for a major charity. Anyone born after 27 June 1980 can submit an ad to this channel until midnight, 17 May. The more creative the better.

Making the video is just half the job. Entrants will have two weeks to drive as many people to their YouTube video as possible. Embed it, blog about it, tweet it – whatever it takes.

At the end of those two weeks, our panel of judges will pick two winners, based on creative execution of the brief and the videos’ views, ratings, comments, votes and overall online footprint. The prize for the two separate winners is an all-expenses paid trip to Cannes to take part in the Young Lions Film Competition. They will be teamed up in Cannes to form Team YouTube and compete against 37 other teams from around the world. Teams are issued with a mobile phone and have just 48 hours to shoot and edit a 60-second commercial on behalf of a charity.

I will be waiting for the 15th to see the brief and take my chance to work on it

Under the patronage of the Jerusalem Forum, OrangeRed music and event management is organizing “Voices for Gaza” a fundraising concert and exhibition, the event will be held at Zara expo, on the 30th of January 2009, at 7:00 PM.

The concert will feature performances by Jordanian Artists; Macadi Nahhas, Ayman Tayseer, and Omar Faqir band, as well as guest appearance by Lebanese star Oumeima El Khalil and a poetry recital by Lebanese media figure and poet Zahi Wehbe.

The exhibition will feature art works by Silsal, Dar Al Anda, Abla Majaj, and Blouzaat. Tickets for this event are priced at JD30, and along with the sales of the artwork, will be wholly donated to the Jerusalem Forum, which in turn will use these funds to provide urgently needed medical and food supplies to Gaza through the Welfare Association.

Along with the public sectors’ full support, the main sponsors of this charity event are: Aramex, Optimiza, Maktoob, Ayyam FM, Jordan Music Forum, JorMall, Blouzaat and Idea Printing Press.

About the organizers:

OrangeRed:

http://www.orangered.net

OrangeRed is a music and cultural event management company that was set up in 2004 in response to a growing demand for innovative and high quality culture events. The company aims to enhance and enrich Jordan’s culture and music scene as well as supporting and developing local music talents. Cultural music is promoted and local and international musicians who are committed to excellence and unique sounds are supported.

Jerusalem Forum:

http://www.jerusalemites.org/index.htm

An NGO based Amman which focuses on presenting the humanitarian struggle of the Palestinians and their determination to preserve their culture and heritage through documenting and publishing historical facts and information to raise awareness.

Welfare Association:

http://welfare-association.org/en/

Welfare Association is a private, non-profit foundation established in Geneva in 1983 to support Palestinian society in sustainable development. It has become better known in Palestine and the Arab region by its Arabic name, Ta’awoun, meaning “cooperation. WA beneficiaries are the more than 4 million Palestinians who are served by Palestinian non-governmental organizations, community institutions and charitable organizations in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Galilee, Jaffa, Akka, Nazareth and Naqab, as well as in refugee camps in Lebanon. WA works by strengthening local organizations, and assisting them in improving their services to the community and in promoting Palestinian culture, heritage and identity.

About the guests of honor:

Oumeima el Khalil:

Born in Al Fakiha in 1966, Oumeima El Khalil started her career as a singer at twelve. She lived in an art-loving family; this is how she was discovered at an early age in the singing world.
El Khalil pursued her secondary studies in the Bekaa, and then moved to Beirut where she studied music theory and vocal techniques.
Meeting Marcel Khalifé at an early age was a good occasion for Oumeima to venture into the world of singing as it gave her the opportunity to sing as a solo in his “Al Mayadin” band where she showed a high level of professionalism in the domain.
The 12-year old girl had her own songs that she interpreted worldwide for over 27 years at high-level concerts in which Marcel Khalifé and his band participated.

Zahi Wehbe:

Born in the border town of Enata overlooking the Galilee where he lived with his mother, while his father worked in Australia. He was arrested and forcibly relocated several times in the eighties until he settled in Beirut and started working with several news papers such as Nida’a and Nahar.

He hosted several television shows through Future broadcasting network, where he interviewed hundreds of public personalities and political figures. As a poet he has so far released four books and currently has two columns in two regional magazines.

The Jordanian Musicians:

Macadi Nahhas:

is a leading light among the young Jordanian artists, has a sparkling talent, distinguished voice and an astonishing presence. With her own special style she revived music and songs from the Middle Eastern Heritage and folklore that was long forgotten. Macadi Nahhas, born in Amman 1977, obtains a Diploma in music from the Music Conservatory of Beirut. Her music career began after her first live performance at Jerash festival in 1997, Since then Macadi has been active in the music scene where she performed in various cultural festivals and events in Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia, Dubai, Denmark. In 2004, she released her debut album “Kan Ya Ma Kan”, a project from the Iraqi Heritage. In the same year, and under the patronage of H.E Minister of Culture, she presented a joint work with the well-known Lebanese poet Zahi Wahbeh in Poetry readings accompanied by Acapella singing. She has launched her new release “khilkhal” last march 2007, the CD is a purely Levantine experience that consists of a collection of traditional Levantine songs and folk music.

Ayman Tayseer: is a Jordanian Artist that has been for long enriching the local and regional music scene with a variety of musical styles ranging from folkloric and classical Arabic Music reaching to eloquent contemporary Arabic music. Although classically trained, Ayman have been carrying out experiments to fuse classical Arabic music with elements from other musical forms and styles, his latest project “Abdul Wahab in Jazz” introduced influences from Jazz music to the classical Abdul Wahab repertoire while preserving the classical value it has retained for years.
Besides being a remarkable singer-songwriter, Ayman plays and teaches oud and qanoun and has written instrumental music for ‘takht’ ensembles. In the year 2005 Ayman earned a PhD in Musicology from Université Saint-Esprit de Kaslik and is currently an assistant Prof. of Oriental Singing at Yarmouk University and head of the Jordanian Music Forum (JMF) Album in Market. Ayman is researching Sufi music, the core of his latest project.

Omar Faqir: grew up in a family famous for its high artistic talents. He has been exposed to all genres of music when he was three years old. His father taught him music theory and then Omar carried on studying jazz by himself. He mastered piano when he was sixteen and started the first jazz band in Jordan “Faculty –X “. Then, he met the legend Charles Davis who advised Omar to apply to Berklee College of music. Omar received a scholarship for performance and composition. Later on, Omar participated in many festivals and performed with many jazz masters such as: Charles Davis, Noah Howard, Harold Mcenny and many others. Omar composed music for TV, radio, songs, along with his own originals. Now, Omar finished recording an album with the great saxophone player Noah Howard and he is working on his first album and preparing for a tour in Europe and Brazil with the great saxophone player Noah Howard.

About the Fundraising exhibition:

About the Exhibitors:

Dar Al-Anda

Since its foundation in 1998, Dar al Anda has been known to the world as a gallery of fine arts. In reality, it was not exactly that; it was rather a project that meant to bring together visual and auditory arts, and thus counted as one of the centers of culture and the arts.
Dar al Anda’s contribution to both arts appeared in the form of musical concerts, informative literary and cultural activities that took place in tandem with the many exhibitions of fine art. Dar al Anda turned its set goals into reality. It presented a great variety of works to its public, works that were subjected to scrutiny and fine selection.

SilSal Ceramics

Established in 1987, Silsal Ceramics is a ceramics workshop and gallery in Amman. Founded on a dedication to reviving the traditional pottery craft of the orient, it produces handmade recreations boasting inspiration from the Bronze Age, Byzantine Art, the many Islamic dynasties and it now offers minimalist and modern lines.  With a strong belief in social development, environmental sustainability and artistic integrity Silsal ceramics strives to preserve and expand the historical craft of pottery.

Blouzaat:

Blouzaat is a cross-cultural, cross-media project, started by a group of artists from Jordan and Germany. Exploring urban art and design through canvas, walls, silkscreen, clothing, and books. It aims not only to explore the artistic scene in the area, but also to introduce urban art by tapping into culture, music, and any other form of self expression, building a new kind of creative community.

Abla Majaj

She was born in Jerusalem and studied at Bir Zeit University. She started her work in philanthropic organizations and then decided to open an antique store that supported under-privileged women by helping sell their antique jewelry and embroidery. Her goal was both to support these women and also to increase appreciation of old Palestinian jewelry and embroidery work (dresses, headdresses, etc) and to pass on this appreciation to the next generation. In this way, she believes she can help preserve Palestinian cultural heritage.

Natalie Hijazi, our amazing artist, drew a a black ribbon as a small tribute for Gaza.

This month’s issue of W2GO guide has the same ribbon with the logo with one difference:

Simply they removed Natalie’s signature from the ribbon as they are the artists who drew it! I don’t think that we are in a counrty that reserves Natalie’s rights. So the only thing that I could do is to say that it’s unethical at all to take a credits of something that belongs to someone else.

When she added the image to facebook she said “feel free to use it”, but not feel free to edit it before using it.

I was surfing YouTube when I stopped by a teaser from Ragheb Alama’s new video clip for his song “Ser Hobbi”. Apparently from the 30 seconds of the video, the director has moved to another level of shooting that I haven’t seen before in the Arab world. The way it’s done seems to be very professional and different than the ones when you see the artist goes to the hospital to see her/his love dying and she/he rescue him/her with a kiss.

Looking forward to see the full video soon.

The Tunisian director Shawqi Al-Majedi, has done a great job, in translating the story of Jenin camp that has been written again by the Palestinian writer Reyad Saif, into an amazing picture that makes you feel like you are really watching the Israeli invasion into Jenin camp.

Staring in the series: the Syrian actor Abbas Al-Nori (who played the role of Jenin’s hero Abu Jandal) and the Jordanian actress Saba Mubarak. The cost of the production for the series was very high and it took more days to shoot. In spite of that, the series has been only played on one satellite channel as most of the Arabic staellite channels was worried to play the series because of its political view.

But “Al-Ejteyah” or “The Invasion” was honored by the Emmy Award, also known as the Emmy, which is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Oscars. The series has has been nominated to get one of the Emmy awards that will be announced next Monday.

Last night, the global financial collapse seemed far behind as one of the most outlandish architectural extravagances of recent times opened with a $20m celebration with a feast of 4,000 lobsters.

For the 2,000 guests, it was a heady cocktail of sunshine and as much champagne and oysters as they could wish for. The poster of the event was titled “2 DIVA’s / 1 PARTY”, as Kylie Minogue and Nawal Al-Zoghbi were the diva’s who have been selected to perform at the party.

Minogue was given her very own fiscal stimulus, a $3m cheque, and her performance has been accompanied with a $4m firework show. Sol Kerzner said: “it’s seven times grander than that which marked the opening of the Beijing Olympics”.

Among the guests were Robert de Niro, Janet Jackson, Wesley Snipes, Michael Jordan, Charlize Theron, Mischa Barton, and Agyness Deyn. Sir Philip Green, Dame Shirley Bassey, Yasmin Le Bon, Jade Jagger, Lily Allen and Lindsay Lohan also joined the celebrations.

The 1,539-room luxury hotel is built on a palm-shaped artificial island. Kerzner has joined with Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, executive chairman of Dubai developers Nakheel, to promote the resort whose launch, along with its party, could not have come at a worse time for its backers. Kerzner, who has hotels around the world, said: “We’ve built something that’s quite extraordinary, and we’ve got to tell the world about it.”

Watch the 21min video of the opening here.

The first time I met Waleed Qutaineh he was with a friend of mine who was telling me that Waleed is very creative and he’s a real artist. Few days after, I’ve seen Waleed again and it was his last semester as a student in Jordan University, so he was preparing for his graduation project. I was there when he and some of my friends started a brainstorming session about the ideas he’s going to draw. The first thing I have seen is the mobile wallpaper of my friend Hadi which was a really nice one and creative. It was an illustration for a smiling face that becomes an angry one when you rotate the image 180 degrees.

Few days later I found Waleed on Facebook, and what was more interesting is his group there. I started to take a look on his drawings on the group and I felt like “It’s not only Natalie”. Natalie is the creative head that drew Akhtaboot’s and Jawaker’s mascots.

I would like you all to take a look on some of Waleed’s work that I enclosed with this post, especially the beautiful one that he has done for me with Kermit the Frog

Waleed now works with Akhtaboot’s old friend, Wael Attili, at Kharabeesh (the animation house). And you can always get in touch with him by email: waleedq84@yahoo.com

]]> http://kermittheblog.net/waleed-we-have-an-artist-here/feed/ 0 http://kermittheblog.net/attention-please-jawaker-is-online/ http://kermittheblog.net/attention-please-jawaker-is-online/#comments Sun, 17 Aug 2008 10:39:12 +0000 Kamel Al-Asmar http://kamelasmar.com/?p=103

A couple of months ago we have put the plan to work on our next project after Akhtaboot. Today, the 17th of August 2008, and before 5 days to complete my first year as a member of the development team of Akhtaboot formerly and now Boundless, finally we are proud to announce that we launched Jawaker.com in its beta version.

Jawaker.com, the first online trix game (as a start) is now online. Do you know what? it’s purely an online game with no downloads and no flash. It has been done using the “latest” web technologies; Jawaker is written with ruby on merb framework with the amazing AJAX touches. And what a wonderful, clear, shiny and attractive design of the website that has been, of course, taking into consideration the standards of web 2.0

A lot of work, a lot of efforts and a lot of fun were the reasons behind launching Jawaker which will take the web by storm. Get your invitation and have the chance to be one of those who are lucky enough to help us in testing the beta version of the website. Drop us an email on info@jawaker.com and we’ll make sure to send you an invitation as soon as possible.

[zoomer]75|400|0|Rum|0|0[/zoomer]

You might recognize the name of Tareq Al Nasser, or might have heard his great compositions in many Arab series starting from ‘Nihayat Rajul Shuja3′ in the 90’s, until ‘Muluk Al Tawaef’ and ‘Al Malek Farouq’ last year.

Rum is a unique Jordanian musical group lead by Arab composer Tareq Al Nasser. He is a true genius, he has a gift of composing brilliant music that overwhelms the listener, and sends shivers down any appreciative persons spine.

Lately, I became an addict to their music, I used one of the tracks “Urdon” as a ring tone on my mobile. I always wanted to attend a live concert for Rum – Tareq Al-Nasser group, but unfortunately they do concerts very rarely in Jordan.

A couple of days ago, I got an invitation on Facebook for an event that is hosted by the European Commission in Amman to celebrate the Europe Day, Finally it is a concert for Rum and here in Amman at “Al-Modaraj Al-Romani”. 8-7-2008 was the date of the event at 8:00PM. I thought “I will be an idiot if I’m going to miss it”

Talking to the people around about it, I found that there is no one that is very interested to go to the concert. I decided that I would go by myself if no one wants to go. Yesterday, 3 hours prior to the concert, I called a friend and asked him if he is interested to go. He didn’t sound very interested but at least he wanted to go. The main concern for my friends who were not very sure about attending was the security issue and the sort of people who will be there as it was a free concert.

7:45 PM, arrived to the downtown with my friend, vallet parking guys were there to serve the people who are coming to the concert, and it was a perfect service that we all would miss as it’s very hard for anyone to park his/her car at the downtown.
Walking towards the auditorium, unfortunately, rain showers started to fall down. It was my first time to visit “Al-Modaraj Al-Romani”. It has 3 doors, 2 of them were as entrances and the third was the way to behind the scene and the stage. I have never ever thought that the security guy would ask us to go to the other door as this is for “families and couples”. I always hate to hear this phrase as it became a tradition in Amman, but it sounded different for me this time, as it was a sign that the concert is organized in a way or another. Any way, I entered the same door when I told him that people are waiting for us inside. Do you know something? That auditorium is huge, it’s much bigger than the one at Jerash where the concerts of Jerash Festival were held. Rains are falling again, musicians, sound technicians and camera men are trying to take out there instrument or to cover them. Thank God I had the booklet of the concert to cover my shaved head.

Half an hour later, the rains stopped falling. The musicians went out as a sign that the concert is starting. Tareq Al-Nasser looked different than the last time I met him with the short hair.

An hour and a half of amazing music has been played, after the very short (Arabic) speech of the French ambassador in Amman, with good interaction from the audience that contained a lot of foreigners. They played Nuwara, Ya bin Al Alam, New Amman, Jerash, Urdon (my favorite), a part of Andalusia (the cold weather was the reason that let them not complete it) and finally, the one that I heard for the first time and which competes with Urdon from my perspective, Nar. I can say that it was one of the best concerts I have ever attended, and this is the only concert that I’m willing to attend hundred of times.

Good job Tareq Al-Nasser, good job Rum… you were extremely amazing.