For musical duo Marcel and Rami Khalife peace is a family affair

Two generations of musicians who have broken new ground and made a difference, Marcel and Rami Khalife, celebrated Sydney Opera House turning 50 in a special concert.

Marcel and Rami Khalife performing at a concert to mark the 50th anniversary of Sydney Opera House. Picture: Joseph Mayers

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Two generations of musicians who have broken new ground and made a difference, father and son duo Marcel and Rami Khalife, were on hand to celebrate Sydney Opera House turning 50 in a special concert which had the auditorium singing and clapping along.

It was the first time in more than a decade that a Sydney audience had been able to see and hear the 72-year-old Lebanese UNESCO Artist for Peace, dubbed the Bob Dylan of the Arabic world for his five decades of promoting love, peace and understanding with the power of his 11-string oud and his beautiful impassioned voice.

The audience had to wait for half an hour for the Concert Hall doors to open but it was worth it when they took the stage, Marcel seated with his lute and Rami at the Steinway concert grand, opening with the short instrumental duet Khiyam before launching into The Pigeons Fly (Yateer al Hamam), the first of Khalife’s songs inspired by the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish with its opening lines “prepare the land for me so that I can rest because I love you till I’m weary”.

The audience in the packed auditorium showed they were also in good voice by joining in – something they would continue to do throughout the 90-minute set as Khalife sang a generous selection of his hits, stretching back to the 1980s for Walking Tall (Wa Ana Amshi).

Another favourite was Oummi (My Mother), which closes with the lines “I’ve grown old … Return the stars of childhood so I can share with sparrow chicks the way back to the nest of your waiting”.

The deeply evocative sounds of Marcel’s oud, sometimes mixing Western folk chords with Arabic yearning melodies, were complemented by Rami’s pianistic skills, which combined his classical training at the Juilliard School in New York with a Keith Jarrett-like approach to jazz and improvisation. Often he would strike, pluck or mute the strings with one hand to produce remarkable sounds from the keyboard with the other.

Two of his standout solos were Ocean, a piece which was inspired by his four years working and living in Australia, and Requiem for Beirut, a moving tribute to the city where he spent the first eight years of his life before the Intifada forced the family to move to France to live.

Marcel, who became a cause célèbre when he was taken to court for singing a quotation from the Koran in one of his songs, is as dedicated as ever to campaigning for justice and peace and a homeland for the Palestinians. He recently urged his fellow UNESCO artists for peace to protest against Israeli incursions, as well as condemning Putin’s war against Ukraine.

But, instead of guns, missiles and violence, he chooses the strings of his oud and that hard to ignore voice as his weapons of war.

DETAILS

• CONCERT Marcel and Rami Khalife present Legacy

• WHERE Sydney Opera House

• WHEN February 6