{"id":44976,"date":"2019-03-07T20:53:49","date_gmt":"2019-03-07T20:53:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mycello.it\/?p=44976"},"modified":"2023-11-14T21:10:12","modified_gmt":"2023-11-14T21:10:12","slug":"karim-wasfi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mycello.it\/en\/karim-wasfi\/","title":{"rendered":"Karim Wasfi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Taking advantage of the positive opportunities offered today by the web, I contact Master Karim Wasfi, Founder and President of Peace Through Arts<\/a>, and ask him if he is available for an interview. His “sure” comes direct and immediate. Here are his answers to my questions…<\/strong><\/p>\n

When, and how was your love for music born? Why did you choose to play\u00a0the cello?<\/strong>
\nBaghdad Iraq, back in 1978, by 1985 I had realized the impact and the\u00a0beauty of connectivity to higher powers through sound and meditation. The\u00a0sound and frequency were always apparent as an expression and a connection.<\/p>\n

Where did you study? Who were your most important teachers?<\/strong>
\nBaghdad music and ballet school – Svetlana Ivanova and Bloomington Indiana with Janos Starker, Tsiushi Tsutsumi, attended the class of Rostropovich<\/p>\n

What were the most important goals of your musical career?<\/strong>
\nTo connect humanity into a higher level of awareness and consciousness\u00a0through vibration, towards an understanding of creation.<\/p>\n

Then, one day, you started playing in your town, wherever the war had\u00a0brought destruction and death. When did you decide to do it and why?<\/strong>
\n1991 but could not share it back then as there were no social media, later\u00a0after many years, returning and after being the conductor of the national\u00a0symphony in Iraq (2007-2016), during 2014 I started taking my battle\u00a0globally against terror and radicalization.<\/p>\n

What do you play in these places hit by bomb violence?<\/strong>
\nI had the path of instant compositions in support of life and in condolences for those whom we have lost. I composed Metamorphosis,<\/em> Baghdad\u00a0Mourning<\/em>, Transcendence<\/em>, a path of Spirits, and Equilibrium… for solo cello and electronics, and for solo cello<\/p>\n

How do people react, when you play in these situations?<\/strong>
\nVery supportive and it elevated all of us to higher levels of compassion\u00a0and awareness.<\/p>\n

And how do you feel when you give voice to suffering? Immersing\u00a0yourself in suffering, accepting it in yourself, and giving it a voice can\u00a0help you to create hope that a better world is possible?<\/strong>
\nSupporto della vita e profondit\u00e0 dell’universo.<\/p>\n

What were, in your opinion, the most symbolic stages of your musical\u00a0journey inside the places of suffering?<\/strong>
\nPlaying in Mosul and Baghdad to battle terrorists.<\/p>\n

Before you, other cellists have felt within themselves the need to choose the stage of life, leaving that of the theater: Rostropovich accompanied with the sound of his cello the fall of the Berlin Wall, Vedran Smailovic mourned the destruction of Sarajevo. Why, in your opinion, did the cellists feel so strongly the desire to give voice to the most dramatic moments in the history of mankind?<\/strong>
\nBecause we have a deeper connection to creation and the universe.<\/p>\n

Music has always created bridges of peace, and musicians have often\u00a0given voice to the unnecessary suffering produced by the war. Music forces\u00a0us to reflect, but … to play is really enough to change the world?<\/strong>
\nNo. We have to educate, aspire, and change through proactive preventive powers to eradicate reasons for terror.<\/p>\n

Thank you very much, Maestro, for your kind availability! We all hope that the world can really find peace through the arts…<\/strong><\/p>\n

March 7, 2019<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Taking advantage of the positive opportunities offered today by the web, I contact Master Karim Wasfi, Founder and President of Peace Through Arts, and ask him if he is available for an interview. His “sure” comes direct and immediate. Here are his answers to my questions… When, and how was your love for music born? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[405],"tags":[1512,1514,1983,2239,6013,6014],"class_list":["post-44976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews","tag-music","tag-cellist","tag-bagdhad","tag-violoncello-en","tag-karim-wasfi-en","tag-mosul-en"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mycello.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mycello.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mycello.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mycello.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mycello.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mycello.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44976\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mycello.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mycello.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mycello.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}