News: Afghan Children's Songbook Released
National Gallery Of Art to celebrate Afghan Children's songbook with performance on opening day of the U.S. premiere of Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures From The National Museum, Kabul;
May 25, 2008
WASHINGTON, DC –-On the occasion of the U.S. premiere of the exhibition Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, a historic compilation of children's songs from Afghanistan will be published with lyrics translated into English. Children's Songs from Afghanistan (National Geographic Books), like the international exhibition of 228 stunning artifacts, is the result of extraordinary efforts by individuals and organizations, including Ayenda: The Children's Initiative and National Geographic, dedicated to preserving the culture and heritage of Afghanistan.
The National Gallery of Art will present a special program about children's songs in Afghanistan, which will include a performance by Washington-area Afghan American children and a book signing at 4:00 p.m. in the East Building auditorium on Sunday, May 25, 2008, the opening day of the exhibition. The children will be accompanied by traditional Afghan musicians, all under the direction of renowned Afghan composer and musician Vaheed Kaacemy, who now resides in Toronto, Canada. The musicians will also perform a program of traditional music in the Gallery's West Building, East Garden Court on the same day at 1:00 p.m.
The program will start with a short introduction by Louise Pascale, who, as a United States Peace Corps volunteer in Afghanistan in the late 1960s, was deeply moved by the beauty of Afghan music and poetry. This was years before the country endured some 25 years of conflict during which much of its traditional culture, including children's songs, was abolished from public life.
The songbook project began in 1966 when Pascale was living in Kabul, teaching English and music to elementary students. She worked with Afghan poets and musicians to create a children's songbook for distribution to the local schools in Kabul. In 1968, 3,000 copies of the songbook illustrated by local children were published and distributed throughout Afghanistan.
Almost four decades later, at the time of the international intervention in Afghanistan in late 2001, Pascale searched for and found a worn and faded copy of the songbook. Assuming correctly that most of the other songbooks had disappeared during the years of civil strife and dislocations, she made a commitment to return the songs to the children of Afghanistan.
When Shamim Jawad, wife of His Excellency Said T. Jawad, Afghanistan Ambassador to the United States, heard about the project, memories of earlier times flooded back. Ayenda: the Afghan Children Initiative, which she founded, provided Pascale with the funding necessary to further develop the songbook.
Pascale, by now a professor at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, partnered with Vaheed Kaacemy, who was moved to tears when he first saw the original songbook, having not thought about the precious compositions for decades. After hours of researching and arranging the songs, he rehearsed and recorded 16 of them in Dari, Pashtu, Uzbek, and Hazaragi with Afghan children in Toronto. Eight of the songs are from the original songbook, while the remaining were collected or composed by Kaacemy. Arsalan Lutfi, an Afghan graphic designer and creative director of TriVision Studios headquartered in Chantilly, VA, with offices and a printing plant in Kabul, volunteered many hours of his time to design and coordinate the production of the songbook with lyrics printed in Dari.
National Geographic funding enabled Pascale to print the first 3,000 copies of the songbook in 2006. Through the efforts of Shamim Jawad and the United States Department of Defense, the songbooks were shipped in March 2007 to Afghanistan and distributed to schools, where it is being used as a literacy and musical text. One year later, 5,000 more copies were printed and are being distributed across Afghanistan.
Qu Qu Qu Barg-e-Chinaar: Children's Songs from Afghanistan is a colorful 24-page songbook accompanied by a 60-minute CD. The songbook contains lyrics of all the songs printed in Dari, musical notation for each song, and delightful illustrations, including some of the children's drawings from the 1968 publication. For more information or to order the songbook with lyrics in Dari, visit the Folk Arts Web site, www.facone.org. To donate a songbook to children in Afghanistan, please visit www.nationalgeographic.com/afghanchildrensfund.
With the support of National Geographic, the lyrics for the songbook have been translated into English and will be available as a new edition when the exhibition opens at the National Gallery of Art in 2008. Children's Songs from Afghanistan, the expanded, 32-page songbook with English translations and transliterations of the lyrics, as well as the original Farsi and the 60-minute CD, will be available from the Gallery Shops for $17.95 (hardcover). To order, call (800) 697-9350 or (202) 842-6002; fax (202) 789-3047; or email mailorder@nga.gov.
During the development of the songbook, Shamim Jawad arranged for Pascale to meet Afghanistan's Minister of Education, Mohammad Haneef Atmar, to discuss distribution of the songbook and future related endeavors. Kaacemy traveled to Afghanistan to meet Atmar and began collecting more songs in hopes that someday a second songbook will be published. Karzai gave his full support to the effort and thanked Kaacemy for using his talents to help Afghanistan's children.
U.S. Exhibition Tour Venues
Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul will premiere at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, May 25 through September 7, 2008. The exhibition will travel to the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, October 24, 2008 through January 25, 2009; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, February 22 through May 17, 2009; and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, June 15 through September 20, 2009.
Exhibition Credits
The exhibition is organized by the National Geographic Society and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in association with the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
It is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
At the National Gallery of Art the exhibition is made possible by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation. It is also supported by The Charles Engelhard Foundation.
