Malek Jandali Believes in the Creative Power of the People of Homs

Pianist and composer Malek Jandali grew up in the city of Homs, Syria.

He now calls Atlanta home.

He is an accomplished concert soloist who has received many awards. At the age of 16, he won first prize in the 1988 National Young Artists’ competition, and received the “Outstanding Musical Performer Award” in 1997.

But last year, he got a different kind of nod, one that recognized Jandali for one of his newly acquired skills. He received the “Freedom of Expression” award in Los Angeles for his song “Watani Ana – I am my Homeland.” Individuals’ stories from the Arab Spring movement are what inspired “Watani Ana” back in March 2011. It’s a hymn-like song to freedom and democracy.

Later last year, Jandali wrote a piece for piano and orchestra to honor the memory of Ibrahim Qashoush, a Syrian protester who was brutally murdered after he came up with a much repeated anti Bashar Al-Assad chant. Jandali’s piece is called “Freedom-The Qashoush Symphony.”

Jandali is now performing concerts to raise money for humanitarian efforts in Syria. As he provides a kind of soundtrack to the ongoing Syrian revolution, he has jumped with both feet into a kind of musical activism. That has come with a personal toll. Not only, Jandali says, is he the target of death threats, but his parents were brutally beaten in Homs just four days after his song “Watani Ana” was performed for the first time in the US. His parents now live with him in Atlanta.

But Jandali does not lose sight of his country’s potential. He says if Syria manages to free itself from dictatorship, it will once again create and innovate as it once did.

Jandali is referring to the fact that Steve Jobs’ biological father, Abdulfattah John Jandali, is a Syrian from the city of Homs himself.

As for Jandali’s innovations, he has arranged some of the most ancient music notation in the world in new works for piano and orchestra in his 2008 album “Echoes of Ugarit.” His new album is called “Emessa,” the ancient name of the city of Homs.