Young independent outlet Megaphone tells the story of Irtijal Festival’s impact on Beirut and Lebanon through local eyes and a compilation of the folks who made it happen. It’s a must-watch as a way of reflecting on the spaces we create for music in all parts of the world.
Co-founders Sharif Sehnaoui and Mazen Kerbaj introduced the festival and ignited a scene in Beirut around experimental improvisation. (“Irtijal” means “improvisation” in Arabic.) Regular readers will spot plenty of artists I’ve talked about over recent years, because the scene there is now an international inspiration.
But that makes Irtijal a model for how a consistent event, year over year, can build something. Enjoy that grainy video footage from summer 2000 in the early times:
None of this is an accident or chance. So much of the music scene depends on orbits a handful of cities, and the repeated pattern becomes painfully familiar. An overabundance of artists move to these hubs, and quickly see their voices lost, playing to dwindling audiences of their artist friends. We play right into the colonialist model; those hubs accumulate wealth and then devalue the periphery — and just as quickly the inbound labor that made them so popular. It doesn’t surprise me at all, then, that Beirut has energized its own musical talent by creating a space for creative exploration. “A Trio” with Sharif, Mazen, and Raed Yassin established its voice partly through the festival that the three organized. And then followed a stream of artists and acts in a growing cluster.
That’s not to say Beirut can’t have its own challenges, rivalries, or insular scenes; I get to waltz in as an outsider. But what I can say with some confidence, having seen the replicated “music capital of the world” myth eleven too many times, all scenes benefit from supporting local artists and entertaining the new.
Every outsider loves coming to Irtijal because of its unbridled energy to do just that. And the fact that Irtijal continued apace through the economic crisis, through COVID, through the port blast, through Israeli bombardment, that it continues without us – that says everything. The true measure of an effective international festival, paradoxically, is that it is just as strong without the international artists. We need Irtijal; Irtijal doesn’t need us.
But we do need Irtijal. We need a lot more like Irtijal. (Beirut can even perhaps have more international events, in an ideal world – especially for the region.)
And we need improvisation – everywhere. Improvisation is a way to respond to unpredictability, by definition. “Even if we fail sometimes, it’s all improvised and we never know,” as Mazen says. “Failure is a strange world, because there is no failure in improvised music.”
“I think these are the only spaces where we can come together, talk, or express the harsh reality that we’re all living through.
Theresa Sahyoun, Shatr Collective
The idea of Irtijal prevents you from dying inside.”
You get others here – Joseph “Junior” Sfeir and Renata Sabella, who co-founded Frequent Defect (its own special space in Beirut), There’s the excellent SANAM I’ve praised and played separately, and Anthony Sayoun and Julia Sabra and Tunefork Studios. There’s the Beirut Synthesizer Center, and Elyse Tabet and Ziad Moukarzel. The connected ecosystem here of multiple spaces and studios has been invaluable.
Take what I’m saying and repeat it to yourself, Paris, Berlin, London, New York, Tokyo, LA – the same dynamics are every bit as true. There’s been so much talk lately of “spaces,” even as artists discover those spaces aren’t the environments we hoped they would be, even as we withdraw. But here is a good demonstration of what improvisation and space can be.
The other question of space is which spaces will even be human. Mazen was always an illustrator as well as a musician. And most of us still think of his music first. But now, to an international audience, he’s likely better known for the haunting directness of his illustrations during the genocide in Gaza. These are now a book, Gaza in my Phone.
So to return to something poet Theresa Sahyoun says about the discipline of improvisation – “to break down all the artistic concepts you know and try something from scratch, to explore something new.”
If the world around us isn’t a call to break down what we know and start over from scratch, nothing is. Maybe music is a form of play that can bring us there. Beneath it all, we’re all still children playing.
Addendum: for more on Megaphone, they’re doing important work as an independent outlet. Their website is in Arabic:
But there’s an English-language WhatsApp chat, and English-language X account, plus Instagram and YouTube content that often includes English translation/subs.
Al Jazeera English and News24 have each done stories on how Megaphone came to be, so they’ve gotten international attention: