Sabreen Is the Studio at the Heart of Jerusalem’s Musical Community

Said, however, has high hopes that this new space will be permanent. The Sabreen team only moved in a few months ago, and it already looks like home. They plan to host performances and workshops in their bright event space, and two Palestinian artists will take up residencies in Said’s studio during the summer of 2024.

Their location might have changed, but their purpose has not. Sabreen remains committed to supporting, platforming, and championing Palestinian artists from across Palestine and the diaspora, and simultaneously building confidence, culture, and community.

The association is named after Said’s band, Sabreen, which he formed in 1980 along with fellow Palestinian musicians Kamilya Jubran, Odeh Tourjmen, Issa Freij, Yacoub Abu Arafeh, Samer Musalem, and Wissam and Issam Murad. Sabreen (“those awaiting” in Arabic) aimed to revolutionize the sound of Palestinian music. They produced songs that reflected the humanitarian and cultural landscape of Palestine and Jerusalem in particular. Sabreen was the first band to combine traditional Middle Eastern and Palestinian music with elements from modern Western music. They played Arabic instruments such as oud, kawal, buzuq, and qanun alongside guitar, violin, cello, and double bass to create traditional Arabic music with Indian, African, and American jazz and blues influence.

Said composed and arranged the music, while Kamilya sang vocals on four out of the five studio albums released, using lyrics from renowned poets such as Mahmoud Darwish, Samih al-Qasim, Hussein Barghouti, and Fadwa Touqan. The result was a vibrant clash of cultures that connected the East and the West while delivering a powerful message straight from Palestine to the world.

Said shows me two huge bookshelves full of tapes, videos, CDs, and floppy discs. “This is everything Sabreen ever recorded, all this over 40 years,” he says.

This archive acts as a documentation of one of Palestine’s biggest musical exports. Sabreen toured the world throughout the 1980s and 1990s, sharing music from albums which were often written during important moments in Palestinian history. Their 1982 album Dukhan el Barakin (Smoke of the Volcanoes) was released during Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon, while 1987’s Maout el Nabi (Death of the Prophet) was written as a tribute to the young people who died fighting for Palestinian liberation during the First Intifada.

Said and his band wanted to build a musical legacy while serving the Palestinian community of Jerusalem, so they launched the Sabreen Association for Artistic Development in 1987. “We decided to have an association, because you can’t live here from music only, especially when you do our type of music,” Said says. Today, the association aims to promote music and combine it with different artistic expressions and forms.

They rented a studio and event space in Sheikh Jarrah that soon became a hub for Palestine’s creative community—a place for them to meet, collaborate, exchange ideas, and actualize their creativity. Their team of producers help Palestinian artists fulfill their potential by providing a place to record, film, perform, and produce.

“If you want to develop the art of music in a certain place, then you need to have a school,” Said explains. “You need teachers, rehearsal rooms, recording studios, places to perform, media to publish the music—you need all of it, and then you can develop the area you live in. Without all this, you can’t do it.”

It’s fair to say just about every Palestinian artist has passed through their studio, including Palestinian rap group DAM, performer, composer, and arranger Mohsen Subhi, oud trio Le Trio Joubran, Palestinian DJ and producer Sama’ Abdelhadi, and Palestinian American composer and musician Nicolas Jaar. “Mention a name, and they were in the studio,” Said says.

Soon after their launch, the Palestinian Ministry of Education agreed to allow Sabreen to establish music clubs in schools across Palestine. “We had 24 music clubs in 24 cities. We produced lots of school concerts, taught teacher training programs, and did a hip-hop song contest,” Said reveals.

Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, Sabreen’s studio and event space was one of the only Palestinian-run venues in East Jerusalem for Palestinian artists to perform. Sabreen lost their funding during the pandemic, however, and in 2022, after 35 years, they were forced to move out of their beloved space.

After a brief hiatus, they set up a space in Dar Al-Tifl Al-Arabi Institute for Culture, Arts, and Literature in Sheikh Jarrah. On several occasions, Said considered giving up as moving around is time-consuming and exhausting, and the financial, social, and economic pressure on Palestinian institutions in East Jerusalem is at an all-time high. Said says they also experience pressure from within the Palestinian community, and it’s becoming difficult to run a liberal and progressive arts space in an increasingly conservative society; but every time Said thinks about throwing in the towel, he remembers why he does this.

“No one is doing the same thing as us, with the same mentality and background. We have the El-Hakawati Theatre, Yabous Cultural Centre, and many associations in different parts of the city, but we are the only ones working on a new generation with a new mentality and different approach,” Said says.

“I feel that young artists and musicians are suffering from a lack of freedom. They don’t have opportunities, and they’re fighting to do something different, but they don’t have support from the authorities,” he adds. “We try at Sabreen to concentrate on this generation and give them the platform to help them produce their own art and say what they want.”

Focusing on young artists has been Sabreen’s main priority recently, and the team has shaped their programs around them by launching competitions, opportunities, open-door sessions, and contests for the youth. For example, Bizer Batteekh (Watermelon Seeds) is an EU-funded project that gives Palestinian artists the opportunity to produce, film, and perform their original songs, all thanks to the team at Sabreen. While this project has been on hold since October 7, 2023, Sabreen hosted a beautiful event two years ago featuring five young artists performing their original songs with accompanying music videos to a large crowd at Institut Français de Jérusalem.

“We need change, and this is how I see it happening,” Said says. “I can see that the Palestinian community is getting more conservative, and I believe that without being open to other cultures, other societies, it’s difficult to make progress.”

To open the minds and worlds of young people, Sabreen’s community manager will ask what they are interested in—whether it’s singing, filming, producing, lighting, or sound design—and then ensure they obtain the training and experience they need to begin a career.

“I always ask, why do we send our kids to Europe, the UK, or America to learn more and understand life, and when we bring them back, we ask them to hide all this and not practice what they learned in their own country?” Said asks. “It’s our mistake; young people here are not totally free, and this is what we want to support.”

Currently, Said is working on multiple projects, as usual. He is remixing old songs for music publisher Pop Arabia, he’s representing Palestine at the International Council for Traditional Music and Dance, and he is working on a music project for the Red Crescent.

“I want to be open to everything, all forms of art and expression, and to be a hub for the younger generation,” Said says. “I also really want to have stand-up comedy; we’ll bring them here and see what we can do to support them.”

For Palestinians who don’t have Israeli permanent-resident IDs, accessing Sabreen’s services is now almost impossible (see Jerusalem: A Closed City and Precarious Status). Without a military-issued entry permit, they can’t enter East Jerusalem, and since October 7, 2023, work permits have been few and far between. “Musicians from the West Bank can’t come unless they have a permit,” Said says. “And this makes the job hard. We can send each other files, but it’s not like before when you had the musician in the studio.”

Inside Jerusalem, life is increasingly challenging for Palestinians. Increased surveillance, arrests, high rents, taxes, and limited resources all put a strain on Sabreen (see Surveillance and Detention). “It’s not easy,” Said shares.

Sabreen, however, refuse to give up on their vision. During the summer of 2024, they will welcome Palestinian artists Tala Akkawi and Adnan Matouq as residents for their new program, Sawa Sawa, in collaboration with Institut Français de Jérusalem. The program aims to support Palestinian artists with diverse profiles by providing them with time, space, and resources to research and develop a project within their preferred medium.

So, although Jerusalem has changed beyond recognition since Sabreen first opened their doors, their values, ideas, and mission have remained the same, making Said quite the visionary.

“Either that or I’m lazy,” he laughs.