'Silence is too dangerous': Adnan Joubran on Gaza, grief and London’s Together for Palestine concert

Oud composer says his music can no longer escape his politics or his humanity

Palestinian musician Adnan Joubran says artists need to ask questions, motivate people and elicit change. AFP

“How are you, really?”

It was a question in an email from Lebanese pianist Rami Khalife, son of revered composer Marcel Khalife, that stopped Adnan Joubran in his tracks

As a solo artist and part of the fraternal group Le Trio Joubran, the musician has been processing wave after wave of grief on the road and in the studio. And the email, received amid the devastation of Gaza where more than 60,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel, elicited, even demanded, a pause.

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Speaking on The National's music podcast Tarab from his home in Paris, Joubran admits there is no answer.

“It is tough not only for me as a Palestinian, but also I think for all of us as human beings,” Joubran says ahead of his Wednesday performance at Together for Palestine. The benefit concert will be held at London’s O2 Arena with Brian Eno, Damon Albarn and Faraj Suleiman among many others.

For two decades, Joubran has carried the joy and burden of being a Palestinian artist – celebrated in concert halls worldwide as part of Le Trio Joubran with his brothers Samir and Wissam. They've recorded with Coldplay, collaborated with Roger Waters, spent years touring with Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish and referenced his writing in their own recordings.

What began as an odyssey to present Palestinian music and culture, stripped of politics, has become anything but. Since the October 7 attacks nearly two years ago, every song and every stage has been fiercely channelled through Palestine’s struggle for self-determination.

“At the beginning, we were refusing to be called political. We were frustrated, like, why do you call us political? We are just musicians. But now, we cannot avoid it,” Joubran says. “The tragedy is too big and the silence is too dangerous. As Palestinians, even if we want to be just musicians, we cannot. The responsibility is there, and we have to carry it.”

Le Trio Joubran, from left, Samir, Wissam and Adnan Joubran. Photo: Youness Hamiddine

That responsibility has also reshaped his experience of the live circuit. Invitations from European festivals and concert halls that once welcomed the group have now significantly dried up. “Many concert halls refuse to welcome any Palestinian musician because they are scared of showing their belonging to the Palestinian case,” Joubran says. “Even though those theatres want to welcome us purely for our music, they're not capable of doing it.”

Hence the significance of the Together for Palestine concert, co-organised by British composer Eno alongside Khaled Ziada, founder and director of the London Palestine Film Festival, and British film and TV producer Tracey Seaward. For Joubran, its importance is clear: “This gathering of artists serves as a resounding declaration that we can no longer remain silent,” he says. “It is a call to action, a demand for justice for the Palestinian people, for the protection of journalists' lives and freedom of expression, and for an end to the ongoing humanitarian crisis.”

The event marks another opportunity for Joubran to collaborate with Eno, a long-time supporter of the Palestinian cause whom he views as a hero. Eno has been publicly outspoken on Palestine for years, from co-founding the organisation Artists for Palestine UK in 2015 to creating sound installations at Banksy’s Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem.

That multidisciplinary approach, Joubran says, has made each meeting with Eno educative. “I sit down and just listen to him telling me things,” he says. “I remember one day Brian called me and said: 'Adnan, can you come? I’m working on a melody that I need your help with on a percussion part.' And it was so amazing, just spending the day with him in his studio, feeling how we work similarly at times.”

Joubran's craft was honed as a child in the family home in Nazareth. His father, Hatem, is a luthier and his mother, Ibtissam Hanna Joubran, is a singer. With his brothers already performing as a duo, Joubran was the last to join, enamoured by their stories of touring abroad. He composed the trio’s first piece, Hawas, which featured on the group’s 2005 debut album Randana.

A key motif throughout the trio’s work is the poetry of Darwish, a former collaborator. After Darwish died, the group used his recorded readings in their music or had them recited by others such as Roger Waters, who appeared on Carry the Earth from the trio's 2018 album The Long March.

“It was amazing to just go in his house and watch him make us pasta and bring his guitar and play something,” Joubran recalls. “I filmed him reciting Darwish at [famed London studio] Abbey Road and from the first take, I had tears on my face. It was as powerful as it could be. Just spot on.”

That sense of intimacy flows into Joubran’s forthcoming album, At Surface, already trailed by the haunting track Before & After. Its ambient soundscapes and plaintive, almost sputtering oud lines are meant to resemble a life changed by war. Along with the London show, they form part of the answer to Khalifa’s email about his state of mind.

“That is hundred per cent engaged music, purely made for my healing process. I think art is not here to answer questions, but to ask them. Being direct now is a social and human responsibility,” he says.

“As artists, our responsibility lies not in impressing, but in expressing, moving and motivating people to take action. The stage is the safest place,” he adds. “My safe place is the music. Where there's no barriers, no judgment.”

Tickets to Together for Palestine have sold out, but the show will be livestreamed on Brian Eno's YouTube channel