A unique collaboration between Palestinian and Welsh musicians:
MUSIC WITHOUT BORDERS
The Alternative Information tour

Monday 12 March at THE GATE Arts Centre
Keppoch Street, off City Road, Roath, Cardiff
Doors open at 8 pm
Tickets: £4 (£3 concessions)

For more info. contact:
Adam Johannes
 thomas_muntzer_cardiff@hotmail.co.uk

Tareq Rantisi and Mohamed Najem from Bethlehem join
Gwilym Morus and Luke Evans from Bangor.

A fusion of traditional Palestinian music with the traditional Welsh ballad form –
canu penillion – in a contemporary context.

In 2005, critically acclaimed Welsh musician Gwilym Morus visited Bethlehem where he wrote two songs with Palestinian musicians resulting in the release of the CD, From Bethlehem to Bangor. After a TV arts documentary on S4C and attention from many international DJs, the project now comes to Cardiff with a live gig that includes songs co-written via email over the past year.

Gwilym Morus:

"Musically our intentions are to fuse traditional Palestinian and traditional Welsh material in a contemporary context. The live performance will be a mixture of traditional instrumentation, such as the Arabic nye flute, daff and darbuka percussion, and elements of the Welsh canu penillion ballad form. This will be accompanied by guitar, banjo and digital sound produced live with a laptop. After the performance we will hold a short twenty min. question and answer session for the audience.

The collaboration works by exchanging ideas via mp3 on e-mail. The musicians consist of two from the Bethlehem area of Palestine, and two from the Bangor area of North Wales. This collaboration is a continuation of the project that began with the release of a four track CD earlier this year called From Bethlehem to Bangor.

Through this we hope to create a cultural relationship between one of the most comfortable countries in the world, and one of the poorest countries in the world, which continues to suffer in the horrific conflict that’s consuming the region. We hope that this relationship can somehow promote a little understanding, compassion and respect between Western and Arabic people."

www.gwilymmorus.com