SARANAC — Violinist Imad al Taha is a virtuoso originally from Iraq.
Journey West founder and violinist Max Buckholtz met him at the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees.
BROTHERS' KEEPER
Buckholtz started calling refugee centers last January during the initial flurry of President Donald Trump's travel ban.
He was interested in offering musicians that needed to work a chance to do so.
He wanted to bring light on their plight and struggles to assimilate in the United States.
“I met with Imad several times, and he's an extremely humble person,” said Buckholtz, who performs with Mark Karlsen, Chad Liberman, Dara Anissi, Martin Shamoonpour, Basam Batbouta and al Taha of Journey West, Saturday and Sunday, 7:30 p.m. and 3 p.m. respectively, at Hill and Hollow Music's concert at the Saranac Methodist Church.
Plattsburgh Cares, a coalition against anti-immigration opinion, will receive $5 from each ticket sale to support their humanitarian work on behalf of refugees and asylum seekers coming to Clinton County.
UNDER PRESSURE
“He was forced to play for Saddam Hussein and his son, Uday, under very stressful circumstances,” Buckholtz said.
“Some of the musicians fell out of favor with the government, and they were tortured to death.”
al Taha fled Iraq and relocated to Dubai where he worked for 20 years.
He performed for the President of Dubai, made many recordings and was featured on national broadcasts airing through the Gulf region.
He came to the United States via the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.
“Imad was vetted for six years before he was allowed to come to the country, and he came here in November 2016. After the refugee ban was attempting to stop everyone at the airport, I was devastated because I was thinking about all these people and their lives and the fact they couldn't purse a better life for themselves.”
And his ancestors intersections of time, place and geography.
On his mother's side, Buckholtz is descended from William Brett of the Mayflower Compact.
His paternal ancestors immigrated from Hanover, German and settled in western New York to farm in the 1800s.
Slowly over time, Buckholtz and Al Taha became very good friends.
“I really care so deeply for him and his situation,” Buckholtz said.
“He's not in a good situation at all right now. He started telling me all about his life. Certain things are just so shocking and so deep. He told me during the Iran and Iraq War, his school was being bombed or that there were air raid sirens. They were going to evacuate the school.”
He forgot his pencil and went to retrieve it from his classroom.
“By the time he went back into the schoolyard, a bomb had killed all his or almost all his classmates,” Buckholtz said.
“He was in midst of conflict for a very long, long time.”
NO PLACE LIKE HOME
After Saddam Hussein was deposed, al Taha tried to return to Iraq at one point.
“He said instead of one Saddam, now there are hundreds of Saddams. Within the area he is from, he is from Basra, which is the the southern part of Iraq, there are religious extremists didn't want music to be expressed. They killed his best friend. He was at home, and someone threw a grenade in his home.”
The explosion propelled shrapnel behind al Taha's ear, and he had to have several surgeries.
He left his homeland again and went back to Dubai.
“The audience can expect to hear about Imad's life and they can expect to hear one of the most masterful musicians from Iraq,” Buckholtz said.
“We have a musical journey that starts in the Middle East and goes through Eastern Europe to Western Europe and up through France, Belgium, Ireland and over to the United States.”
ART OF A NAME
The ensemble's name was taken in conjunction with programming and an exhibition at the Rockwell Museum of Western Art in Corning, NY.
“We were supposed to pick a painting and try to come up with a program that represented the painting,” Buckholtz said.
“I was presented with a painting by an artist named N.C. Wyeth. It was a picture of, what looked like in my mind, looked like homesteaders. It started the process in my mind of thinking about everyone who has ever come to this country to try to escape political oppression or religious persecution or wars or famines or other unfortunate circumstances; slavery,” Buckholtz said.
“Just how after arriving here the general thrust and impetus within the individuals and their families is try to make a better life for themselves. It was about all the cultural influences that they have brought with them that I wanted to represent in the program.”
Buckholtz had free reign to select whatever music he wanted for the Musicians Choice Series of the Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes in 2011.
“I picked all these varying types of folk music and chose the musicians who could best represent the music. Our first concert was in Corning.”
CORE PHILOSOPHY
Thus, Journey West was born but its incubator was Buckholtz's Suzuki Method training with his teacher Mary Cay Neal, founder of the Buffalo Suzuki Strings.
“Dr. Suzuki was an educator in Japan, and he had witnessed the atrocities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and he never wanted that to happen again,” Buckholtz said.
“He had a belief that music could be a mother tongue just as we learn our languages from our parents when we are small, we can also learn music in the same manner. It was his philosophy hat there could be world peace through music. It's a universal form of communication.”
Email Robin Caudell:
Twitter:@RobinCaudell
IF YOU GO
WHAT: "Journey West: A Musical Migration."
WHEN: Saturday, Nov. 18 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Nov. 19 at 3 p.m.
WHERE: Saranac Methodist Church on Route 3 in Saranac.
ADMISSION: Advance-sale tickets at $15 are available in Plattsburgh at Alpha Stereo, Corner-Stone Bookshop, and SUNY's Angell College Center, and in Dannemora at Maggy Pharmacy, as well as through Hill and Hollow Music. Day-of-show tickets at $18 will be sold at the door 30 minutes prior to show-time. Children under 12, accompanied by an adult, may attend free. Both concerts will benefit Plattsburgh Cares, with $5 from each ticket sale donated to their important humanitarian work on behalf of refugees and asylum seekers coming into Clinton County. Concert seating is open. Lght refreshments are served during intermission.
PHONE: 518-293-7613.
EMAIL: hillholl@hughes.net
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