Syrian violinist Abdul Nanou fled music-hating ISIS

Already fluent in Eastern style music, Syrian violinist Abdul Nanou is mastering the Western violin tradition at Elder Conservatorium.

Syrian-Australian violinist Abdul Nanou.

LIFE in Syria was good for violin virtuoso Abdul Nanou.

At least it was before the first shots were fired in the eight-year-old civil war that split the country apart and saw many cities in this cosmopolitan Middle Eastern nation reduced to rubble.

But the final insult, for Nanou at least, was the rise of the music-hating zealots who called themselves ISIS.

“I was a famous violinist in Syria, playing with the big stars,” Nanou says.

“Then the situation in Syria became worse and worse, and the ISIS people threatened me and my family because music was not allowed.”

Realising there was little future for a violinist in a land with no music, and fearing for the safety of his university teacher wife and their two children, Nanou fled to Dubai.

From Dubai the family applied to move to Australia and were accepted, settling in Adelaide and starting a new life on the other side of the world.

Syrian-Australian violinist Abdul Nanou.

“I have a daughter and a son, 12 and 10 years now,” he says.

“Now they have a music life, a dance life, my son has a footy life! He’s a Crows man!”

Nanou says he loves his life in Adelaide, although he pines for the Syria of old.

“Syria was a very nice country, with a lot of culture and music and literature,” he says.

“We with lived without any ethnic troubles. My family and me were a minority in Syria – we are of ethnic Russian background – but we had a nice life with no ethnic fighting or religious fighting or any of those stupid things. Suddenly these issues appeared and you couldn’t believe it could become like that.”

In Australia, Nanou set out learning a new language, new customs, and a completely new musical style.

Already fluent in Eastern style music, Nanou threw himself into the formidable task of mastering the Western violin tradition. He enrolled in the Elder Conservatorium and started learning his new musical “language”, and recently received his postgraduate degree.

“When you come to a new place you have to think what you have to do,” Nanou says.

“You might have to learn a new language, or you might have to learn a new way of playing.”

One of the main difference between the Eastern and Western classical tradition, he says, is that the Eastern style allows a lot more room for improvisation.

“When you play a classical piece you have to play like Mozart said or Bach said,” Nanou says.

Syrian-Australian violinist Abdul Nanou.

“In oriental style you can put your own character into it. A bit like jazz.”

And it’s not serious classical music, there’s room for some rock ’n’ roll too, with Nanou last year performing with the Zep Boys and their Black Dog Orchestra.

“They wanted me to help them play Kashmir, and Kashmir is in a very oriental style,” he says.

“I said absolutely, I was more than happy. It was a great opportunity to play with an orchestra of more than 50 people in front of more than 1000 people. It was a big success.”

Now Nanou wants to pass on what he knows to a new generation, using the skills he’s learned through Nexus Arts’ Creative Cohesion program to open his own music school teaching the Eastern violin tradition.

“I say to young musicians, make your instrument part of your soul, not just something to practice,” he says.

“If you love it you will not leave it. It will become part of you.”

SEE: Abdul Nanou with Ghanaian singer-songwriter Manadi Lopa, Nexus Arts, Lion Arts Centre, June 14

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