Broken Branches Connecting Cultures

Two men in black suits of different styles sit in plain chairs, small in the center of the stage. The first man wears a vest, the way his dark curly hair is styled is evocative of the pop star charm this classical tenor is famous for. The second man walks on with an acoustic guitar in his hands and a vestless suit vaguely reminiscent of 70s style clothing. The guitarist, Sean Shibe, begins to tune his instrument. The lights of the stage catch on the face of singer Karim Sulayman as he looks up. As Shibe’s playing began to fill the sparse stage, Sulayman’s bright smile lit up his face. There is a kind humanity that everyone in the audience can see. It makes the audience smile with him.  

Sulayman and Shibe’s performance of their classical album Broken Branches at the Meany Center for the Performing Arts was a beautiful ode to the power music has to connect people. Through the album, the musicians aimed to explore their identities as Eastern musicians who grew up in the west. With classical music being historically perceived as a Western creation, these artists attempt to select songs that will reconcile this notion. As classical musicians, creating such music is the rebellious act of breaking down the false binary of East and West and connecting to the humanity in all of us.

This performance explores the universality of human emotions through different cultures. A selection of pieces in the show are not sung in English, such as Si dolce é`l tormentio and La mia turca. These pieces, played right after each other, contain two different artistic interpretations of the emotional journey of sadness and despair that the audience can pick up on even if they’re unable to speak Italian. Si dolce é`l tormentio is a mournful song and you can hear distinct pain in Sulayman’s rich tenor. La mia turca, however, is an immediate shift into the comedic realm. Sulayman’s face warped in ways that made the audience laugh out loud even with the language barrier. His comical frown as he wailed like a mime given the ability to sing made the pain of the song something to laugh at, a completely different intended effect on an audience unable to understand the lyrics. The audience’s deep reactions to these pieces prove their ubiquity despite their cultural differences.

Connection can be found throughout the entire performance, including its name. The title Broken Branches comes from the last line of A Butterfly in New York, a song commissioned by Layale Chaker for the album. A Butterfly in New York is a narrative piece that tells the story of a narrator growing up as a boy in Baghdad and chasing after butterflies but never catching them. We are then transported, 30 years later and 6,000 miles away, to New York, where a butterfly lands on the narrator’s shoulder causing him to wonder if somehow the butterfly knows that he no longer chases after them like when he was a boy, he just sits and lets life fly by him. The guitar and vocals are very intense, with a dark and low tone; Sulayman seems to have a heavy pain in his voice. The symbolism of the butterfly coming to land on his shoulder reflects the narrator’s story of growing up in the East and then living in the West as they grew older echoing Sulayman and Shibe’s personal histories. Given the themes of the performance this was an important story to tell for both. Despite this movement through space and time, the butterfly serves to remind him that despite his change he is still the same boy who lived in Baghdad and chased after butterflies. This continuation of identity while shifting settings connects to breaking down boundaries because the narrator of the song seems to have lost something by growing older and trying to make himself more “westernized. The pain in Sulayman’s voice reflects the character in the song realizing that he no longer runs after butterflies, he watches them. Sulayman and Shibe included this song because it bridges the divide between East and West and depicts the relatable journey of growing up and feeling nostalgia.

One of my favorite parts of the performance is a song cycle called Songs from the Chinese composed by Benjamin Britten. This is a section of six shorter pieces that feel dream-like and reminiscent of children’s stories. The lyrics are loosely translated from Chinese by Arthur Waley. The program notes claim that Sulayman and Shibe chose the piece due to its flaws because of the statements they wanted to make about the relationship between the East and West. Not only is the history of these songs important to the successful execution of the theme of the album, the songs themselves were beautifully performed by Sulayman and Shibe. In the first song, The Big Chariot, the lyrics and guitar both had an upbeat aura while still holding space for quiet sadness. “Don’t think about the sorrows of the world,” Sulayman sang with a strange expression on his face, playful yet lamenting, “or you will never escape from your despair.” The guitar got quieter in this moment before quickly picking up again into its mischievous uptempo melody. This lyric is repeated multiple times throughout the song, creating irony since the performance is about listening to people and attempting to heal through music. The somber lyrics combined with the happy melody makes it feel like a twisted children’s fable.

A lot of people could benefit from seeing music like this, considering the artists’ backgrounds and thoughts helped inspire an international mindset. By creating something new while still connecting to history, Sulayman and Shibe have accomplished a performance in which they use their passion for uplifting modern classical music to cross boundaries and explore their own identities.

Lead photo (Karim Sulayman and Sean Shibe) courtesy of Meany Center for the Performing Arts.

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