Since the outbreak of civil war in Syria in 2011, music has been central to Maya Youssef’s efforts both to process what was happening back home, and to maintain the core of her Syrian identity.
Having left Damascus for Oman in 2007, Maya moved to the UK in 2012 after being granted an Exceptional Talent Visa (now the Global Talent Visa) on the recommendation of Arts Council England.
“I started writing music when the war in Syria erupted,” she says.
“Since then, music became my way to heal, first of all, and to just connect with a sense of home and bring it to people. Even if these people are not Syrians, which is really gorgeous. My audience is quite international, which I love, and it’s always very beautiful to hear how the music brings people to that centre.”
A composer, speaker and instrumentalist, Maya is known as the ‘queen of the qanun’, a 78-stringed Middle Eastern plucked zither. Through her very public affinity with the instrument, traditionally played by men, she has staked her own claim to her cultural heritage.
“I’m aware that I am quite disruptive to the stereotypes,” she concedes. “In terms of me being a woman, being a qanun player, a composer who takes the instrument to very different musical horizons. I’m not your traditional qanun player by any stretch of the imagination.”
Now a British citizen, and with much of her extended family based in the UK, the sense of home which has long been the driving force of Maya’s music making is complicated by the fragmented sense of connection recognisable to anyone with roots in two places. But as Syria emerges from its recent past and once again hits the headlines as it looks ahead to the future, the feeling of duality can be potent.
“You can be walking down the streets of London, and particularly with what’s happening now back home, I’m just getting lots of flashbacks from Damascus. I’m getting all these floods of memories and trying to channel it as much as I can into my music. It’s an interesting state, feeling between two very very different worlds, but it’s also, artistically, a very enriching state.”
This year’s Darwin College Lecture Series explores the concept of Codes, a word which, for Maya, has a particular resonance in terms of her relationship with her music.
“You can think of music itself as code – for me the music is my secret code to connect to an essence of home. And the concept of home is not necessarily a physical place. It can be a spiritual state of being, or can be as simple as allowing the sunshine to shine on your face. So we can take this in all kinds of spiritual and philosophical dimensions, in the simplest of ways and in a way that feels expressive of how I relate to music.”
While the lecture will, naturally, be predominantly spoken word, Maya’s qanun will also make an appearance at Lady Mitchell Hall.
“The talk would be completely incomplete without my music – it would be completely out of context,” she explains. “The sound is also a kind of language, so it will speak for itself. So it’s not going to be a concert; it’s going to be a talk interspersed by bits of music here and there, just to demonstrate certain points.”
This will be an unusually personal contribution to the Darwin College Lectures, one which promises to reach its audience on an emotional as well as intellectual level.
“Music to me is a very spiritual practice,” says Maya. “It’s my applied spirituality in the world. I always pray before I do anything, for the music, or the talking, or the teaching, or whatever I’m doing, to bring that person to a sense of peace, awareness, calmness, and just opening up to a different world. I just hope people will come along with an open mind and an open heart. Hopefully they will come out uplifted and with a feeling of connection.”
Join us for Maya’s lecture, The Power of Music: A Journey Back to Home, at 5.30pm on Friday 31st January.
