Damascus-SANA
With their tender voices that mastered the musical note before uttering the letter, and their tender fingers that mastered the calligraphy of love in the language of art and music, this is how the Choir of Joy produces peace and sends a message to all parts of the world.
The El Farah Choir used to make today’s date an annual tradition for the children who graduated from the third year (preparatory) to join their friends, the children of the El Farah Choir. However, it was the first time that the sponsor and founder, Father Elias Zahlawi, insisted that graduation should have another taste after three years of seriousness and commitment to the supervision of the choir leader. Marwan Nakhleh to culminate in a special ceremony attended by her sons' families to honor the successful people, after which they continue their march in the choir.
45 boys and girls from the choir singers stood today to tell a 3-year-old story that they spent learning the basics of singing and solfege and playing various musical instruments through funny lyrical sketches, in addition to performing a bouquet of hymns, spiritual chants and Rahabna songs, with a distinguished performance that was well received by all the attendees.
Father Elias Zahlawi said in a speech during the ceremony: “Despite the circumstances we have been living in for nearly twelve years, we still hear a voice in which there is certainty of eternal joy and a determination to achieve the joy that will come.
He paid tribute to the martyr Shadi Shalhoub, who was martyred on the way to one of the division's training during the war years.
Father Zahlawi stressed that love is the basis for the success of any work, and that the Choir of Joy is a project based on love, voluntarism and complete sacrifice from forty years ago until the present day, wishing that joy and peace would prevail in Syria, which wrote a lesson in brotherhood between religions in a pattern that history had not known before.
It is noteworthy that the Choir of Joy is a Syrian volunteer choir affiliated to the Church of Our Lady of Damascus, founded by Father Elias Zahlawi in 1977. It was launched with fifty-five children of both sexes. Its first service was on Christmas Eve of the same year. Today, it includes more than 500 chanters ranging in age from 7 to 75 years.
It carries a religious, national, artistic and human message in a renewed form of elaborate performance, word and melody, and it keeps pace in its musical arrangement with the rapid development that our world is experiencing, while adhering to our ancient Arab musical heritage.
Amani Farooj
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