Water doesn’t behave the same way twice. It absorbs sound, distorts it, carries it, and sometimes erases it altogether. That instability is where artist Tarek Atoui works. We’ve seen it in Bjork’s live concerts and now Atoui is bringing his installation to the Tate.

This October, Atoui will create the next annual Hyundai Commission for Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, one of the most demanding spaces in contemporary art. Rather than filling it with volume or spectacle, Atoui is likely to do something quieter — letting sound move through materials. (Our feature and review on In The Dark bears some likeness to this upcoming event.)

Born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1980 and now living in Paris, Atoui has spent years building instruments that don’t sit comfortably in concert halls. Many of them involve water, glass, and ceramics — materials that react to sound instead of simply producing it. Water ripples, bowls hum, glass vibrates at the edge of breaking. Sound becomes something you encounter physically, not something delivered from a stage.

Much of Atoui’s work takes place in low light or near darkness. When the room dims, listening changes. You stop scanning for meaning and start paying attention to sensation: vibration in the floor, resonance in a vessel, a faint shift in air pressure. Sound moves slowly, negotiated through touch, breath, and mechanical movement.

Water, glass, and ceramics aren’t supporting actors here. They carry the whole piece.

Atoui’s instruments are often activated by visitors rather than performers. A hand turns a surface. Breath enters a pipe. A motor stirs liquid in a shallow bowl. Sound emerges unevenly, depending on how gently or insistently the materials are engaged. Nothing is fixed.

This approach is evident in works like Waters’ Witness, shown at Kunsthaus Bregenz in Austria and later at Pirelli Hangar Bicocca in Milan, where sound passed through water-filled vessels and ceramic forms. The experience was less about listening to a composition and more about becoming aware of how sound behaves in matter — how it pools, disperses, and leaves residue. Of course the easiest way to access this kind of natural “art” is just to sit by a lonely brook and listen to Mother Nature herself, without the pomposity.

The Turbine Hall itself is an acoustic body: vast, industrial, difficult to control. Rather than overpowering it, Atoui’s practice suggests a tuning of the space — allowing sound to circulate, settle, and respond to the architecture’s own history as a former power station.

At a time when sound is usually amplified, compressed, and consumed instantly, Atoui’s work insists on slowness. It asks visitors to stay with uncertainty, to notice small changes, to listen with their hands and feet as much as their ears.

There are no instructions. No single vantage point. Just materials doing what they do best when left room to act.

The post Listening to Water: Tarek Atoui’s Next Work for Tate Modern appeared first on Green Prophet.

I was delighted to get invited to a special performance of ‘In The Dark’ this week in London, after seeing the project get birthed and thrive in my home city of Cambridge quite a few years ago.

Dynamic cultural producer Andrea Cockerton has worked within music for many years, and knew that the idea of giving audiences an immersive live musical experience – in darkness – could bring tremendous benefits, and over several iterations, this project is thriving, and has now been brought to London audiences – with the hope it will grow into the projects permanent home.

The Space:

The current venue is St Andrew Church in Holborn, on Chancery Lane, right in the heart of London’s economic district – and as I stepped out of the tube station into the street, the grey gloom of the capital City greeted me, with all the busyness and throng of a Thursday evening at rush hour. I often feel a special thrill at going to an arts event in such a mercantile environment: arts, culture and the imagination so often feel threatened by the push for finance and economic stabilty within this current political climate, in funding the sciences for instance, and this was no exception, particularly as it was in a church in the heart of it all. While inside this very special church, restored and renovated in 1668 by the eminent architect Sir Christopher Wren, outside us office blocks are reaching up high, whereas for many years previously only sky would peer in.

St Andrew’s has vaulting pillars, beautiful golden screens, some sculptures and statues, and uplighting that matches the pillars, alongside oak panelling, all in a straightforward display – a fresh simple and yet deeply spiritual space for prayer, contemplation, and tonight, immersive live sound! The space had been lit with reds, blues, and greens, enhancing the atmosphere greatly.

I took my dear friend, Mick Collins, Norwich-based therapist and writer, who talked in rhapsodic terms about the venue and the whole experience afterwards.

Music:

Transported by the choral and instrumental offerings that popped up across the space, in corners, in front of us, and alongside us. The performance was genuinely breathtaking and profound, and it needed some quiet time to fully digest the experience. Those first moments after the concert had ended were gloriously ineffable. At no stage in the hour was I tempted to lift the eye mask and peek at the scene, though I did wonder if I might have loved this even more were I lying on the floor! I particularly loved hearing male voices starting, and solo female voices, as well as elements of rhythm and percussion leading some of the pieces.

We could hear the voices and instruments travel around the space, and I felt a sharper sense of hearing sounds thrown between instruments, bouncing off each other and responding to the piece. Maybe a sound came from my row of seats, then a singer was in front, and then a chorus of voice rose from the far left. And so forth, punctuated by silences between each of the pieces.

For some of the music, I really felt there was a watery theme (having spent much of last years promoting films and activism engaging with water and rivers), which delighted me, and scanning through the programme we were cleverly handed afterwards, the titles of some of the tracks bear this out. I won’t spoil the surprise and talk about the specifics and the songs that are part of the event as I really want to maintain the joy and surprise of the not knowing, and absolutely want to encourage everyone to go and experience this event if they are able. There was a glory in sitting and having the sounds wash over me, with no knowledge, anticipation, or even expectation of anything specific. Seeing the musicians as we peeled off the provided (very thick and comfortable and available to take home! ) eye masks who clearly were as happy as the audience were, and receptive to our cheers and applause, brought us all into rapt synergy.

All my neurons were buzzing and melting, and after a few thank you’s, hugs, enjoyment of the space and the folk we had shared this with, we melted out of the church, lifted divinely by having been ‘In The Dark’.
The projects publicity says “no phones and no distractions” and absolutely, what a joy that is.

Reflection:

Walking back to the tube, and then the train home, we were both pretty speechless, unable to find words for what we have both witnessed through our audible senses. We thought a bit, sat in quiet reverie, danced with some words, and then decided to reflect overnight and see the next day how we felt. After a deep slumber, all my neutrons moulded back into the shape of me, and we checked in with each other –

Mick: “ at one stage I felt I was inside a prayer – the experience was effervescent on the inside, like champagne bubbles: certain pieces brought this up. A very sacred experience. Afterwards I was left with a sense of oneness, in a true sense of the word. Very light in the body, and my mind had been cleansed – the vibration of the sound and the instrumentation. A beautiful beautiful experience. “

‘In The Dark’ is an exceptional immersive cultural experience like no other. Hearing these musicians perform together, to us and with us, in this unique and held spiritual environment of St Andrew Holborn, is both restful and stirring, joyful and deeply prayerful, beyond words.

::In The Dark

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After a sold-out London debut in 2024, the acclaimed immersive audio experience “in the dark” returns to the capital in January 2026, with performances scheduled for January 22, 23, 29 and 30 at St Andrew’s Church in Holborn.

The 60-minute performance places 30 musicians around the audience in complete darkness. Audience members wear sleep masks while the musicians perform fully live and acoustically, without amplification, speakers, or a conductor. Sound moves around the space in a choreographed 360-degree journey, allowing listeners to experience music purely through hearing.

A similar concept in dining exists in the Jaffa Port, where diners eat in a blacked out dining hall. There are no masks to wear and servers are already blind. You need to have faith and trust in the people around you.

The concept of listening in the dark, first developed in Cambridge in 2017, has grown into an international phenomenon. Its London season in 2024 received the Offies Assessors Choice award and strong critical and audience response. Since its launch, in the dark has staged more than 60 performances for over 8,000 people in venues across the UK.

Musicians are drawn from leading institutions including the Royal College of Music, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and West End productions. Each performance is shaped by the natural acoustics of the venue, making every show distinct.

Founder Andrea Cockerton describes the philosophy behind the project: “In a world obsessed with being seen, we’re asking people to disappear for an hour. in the dark is a quiet, sound rebellion. No phones, no spectacle, no distractions… just the rare chance to actually feel music again.”

Related: Supper trains and no-pants day train in London

Cockerton, an award-winning arts entrepreneur, is known for her ethical approach to the arts and has received recognition including the NESTA / Observer New Radicals award and the SheSaidSo Alternative Music Power 100 honour.

While not positioned as a wellness event, in the dark mirrors the way nature restores attention and awareness: by removing visual dominance, the experience encourages deep listening, stillness, and presence — the same mental state many people seek in forests, deserts, or by the sea.

The absence of spectacle becomes the point. Each seat offers a different sound perspective. Each listener becomes an active participant in shaping their own experience.

Often described as the “Cirque du Soleil of the senses,” in the dark is now planning future performances across the UK, Europe, Australia and North America.

Tickets for the January performances at St Andrew’s Church, Holborn are now on sale.

::In The Dark

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In homes from rural Kenya to Tokyo high-rises, one universal thread connects us across culture, language, and belief: singing to babies. Now, a new study out of Yale University offers scientific validation to what parents and caregivers have known for generations—singing soothes babies, lifts their moods, and strengthens early emotional bonds.

Published in Child Development on May 28, the study reveals that even brief increases in musical engagement can lead to real health benefits for infants, particularly improved mood and emotional regulation. This is a timely reminder that amidst rising mental health concerns and parenting stress, some of the most powerful interventions are still the simplest—and the most ancient.

Singing in Waldorf Education: A Foundation for Emotional Intelligence

In Waldorf education, which draws on the philosophies of Rudolf Steiner, singing is not simply entertainment—it’s a way of being. From infancy through grade school, Waldorf teachers and caregivers incorporate song into daily rituals, transitions, and lessons. The belief is that young children absorb the world through rhythm and melody, and that music helps them harmonize internally with their environment.

In a Waldorf pre-school class, you might see a teacher lighting a candle while softly singing a greeting song. Later, a lullaby might guide children into rest, or a playful tune might invite them into circle time. Even math and language learning are introduced through song.

“Singing carries warmth, and warmth is what the young child most needs,” says Karin Kloosterman, the founder of Green Prophet. “When we sing to babies, we offer them an emotional map of the world.”

Singing to babies isn’t exclusive to Waldorf or Western education. It’s a cross-cultural instinct deeply embedded in human caregiving. In Uganda, mothers sing lullabies called ebinyinyinya to soothe infants at night. In Arctic Inuit communities, families use ayaya songs—short, improvised melodies whispered to babies during long winters. In India, lori lullabies are passed down through generations as sacred maternal rites.

Anthropologists have found that infant-directed music has recognizable patterns across all human cultures: slower tempo, higher pitch, and repetitive phrasing. “Music is one of our species’ earliest and most reliable ways of saying, You are safe. You are loved,” says Dr. Samuel Mehr, director of The Music Lab at Yale.

Even in cultures where literacy is limited, music serves as a primary vehicle for emotional and social development. And now, science is catching up.

The Yale Study: A Closer Look

In the Yale study, 110 parents of babies under four months were divided into two groups. One was encouraged to sing more often, supported with baby-friendly songbooks, karaoke videos, and weekly prompts. After just four weeks, the babies in this group were consistently rated as being in a better mood compared to those in the control group.

Notably, many parents naturally used singing as a tool for calming fussy infants, even though the study didn’t instruct them to do so. “They intuitively reached for music, because it worked,” says co-author Lidya Yurdum.

While the parents’ own moods didn’t show marked improvement over the short timeframe, researchers believe long-term singing might also support caregivers, potentially offering relief from stress and even postpartum depression. The study has now expanded into a longer eight-month trial, titled “Together We Grow.”

In a modern world saturated with overstimulation—from screens to synthetic noise—this research reminds us of the profound power of simplicity. Singing is free. It requires no batteries, no subscriptions, and no formal training. And yet, its impact is potentially transformative.

In fact, studies suggest that when caregivers sing lullabies, they regulate not only their child’s emotions but also their own. Heartbeats slow. Breathing deepens. A kind of co-regulation unfolds, tuning parent and child to each other’s rhythms.

“It’s the original language of connection,” says Waldorf educator and parenting coach Eliza Gold. “Singing allows us to meet our children in a space that words can’t reach.”

Want to Start Singing to Your Baby?

Keep it simple: No need for perfect pitch. Babies love the sound of your voice.

Create routines: Use the same song for waking, naptime, or bathtime.

Include siblings: Singing together strengthens family bonds.

Draw from yoru own family traditions. Ask your grandmothers, or parents or aunts. Use Waldorf inspiration: Sing instead of speaking during transitions—e.g., “Time to wash your hands” becomes a gentle chant.

In a time when parents are bombarded with products and programs promising better baby development, it’s worth remembering that our voices—and our presence—are still the most powerful tools we have. The science now confirms it. And the world’s mothers, grandfathers, and early childhood teachers have always known it.

The post The Ancient Art of Singing to Babies: A Global Tradition, Now Backed by Science appeared first on Green Prophet.

In the heart of Europe, quirky grassroots movements are turning everyday spaces into stages for creative climate action. From the steamy heat of Finnish saunas to the grassy lawns of Ghent, communities are blending tradition with innovation to tackle environmental issues. Imagine discussing decarbonization strategies while wrapped in a towel or racing snails to protest urban sprawl? These playful yet purposeful initiatives are sparking change and challenging us to rethink how we interact with our environment. Welcome to the new wave of eco-activism where you can participate locally and meet like-minds that feel globally.

The Climate-Fighting Saunas of Helsinki, Finland

In Helsinki, Finland, a city that we travelled to meet cleantech and loved, the traditional Finnish sauna is being reimagined as a hub for social innovation and environmental policy discussions. Communal saunas, such as the Kyro Sauna Bar, have become venues where locals gather to brainstorm and develop strategies for decarbonizing their neighborhoods. Finns meet in the sauna to discuss everything, including the economy. In fact, you can hear them talk about the cost of something in terms of “how many saunas”.

The Kyro Sauna Bar, as a pop-up bar/sauna, offers a relaxed setting where patrons can enjoy drinks in their bathrobes, fostering an atmosphere conducive to open dialogue and creative thinking.

This initiative leverages Finland’s deep-rooted sauna culture to address pressing climate issues, demonstrating how traditional practices can be adapted for modern challenges. ​

Goat-Led Urban Landscaping in Ghent and Kent and by Google

In Ghent, Belgium, an innovative approach to urban landscaping involves employed goats to manage overgrown vegetation in public spaces. This method utilizes the natural grazing habits of goats to clear invasive plants and maintain green areas. Goats are particularly effective in accessing difficult terrains and can consume a variety of plant species, making them ideal for ecological land management. We have done the same with chickens but they are harder to contain. 

The goat idea caught on in the UK where residents have an opportunity to “adopt a goat,” to create a sense of ownership and connection to local green spaces. This approach enhances biodiversity, promotes sustainable urban development, and serves as an educational tool, raising awareness about alternative land management practices and the importance of ecological balance in urban environments. Over in the US you can rent a goat for about the same purpose. And apparently Google does this too. ​

Snail Racing to Protest Urban Sprawl –– Ready, Steady, Slow!

In Provence, France, and also in places like Norfolk, UK, residents have devised a whimsical yet impactful method to protest against urban sprawl and the expansion of highways: snail racing events.

In France, participants bring their own snails, and the events are accompanied by local wine and cheese, fostering a festive community atmosphere. Signs with slogans like “Slow is Beautiful” emphasize the message. This form of protest draws attention to the environmental and social consequences of rapid urban expansion, encouraging policymakers and developers to prioritize sustainable and community-friendly planning.

The snail races have garnered media attention, highlighting the power of creative, grassroots activism in influencing public discourse and policy decisions. At some race locations in France those who don’t win make it into the cooking pot. Ouch. ​

Paris’s Guerrilla Commuter Choirs

In Paris, France, guerrilla commuter choirs are rumored to have emerged as a form of spontaneous musical activism within the city’s metro system. These secret choirs assemble during rush hours, performing songs that focus on climate change, environmental awareness, and the beauty of nature. (Riding the train in Europe is an ecological thing –– find out about the Techno trains, sauna trains and folk trains here).

Anyone can confirm this happening?​

Birdsong DJ Battles – Berlin, Germany

There are artistic initiatives in Berlin that blend music and nature to raise awareness about local bird species and environmental issues.​ For instance, the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin collaborated with techno DJ and ecologist Dominik Eulberg to create “biodiversity sound shows.” These performances combine electronic sounds with natural science, aiming to inspire audiences to appreciate and protect biodiversity. ​

Artists Janosch Becker and Hanna Komornitzyk have organized events like “To sing like a nightingale,” where they invite participants to explore urban spaces to listen to and learn about the songs of nightingales and skylarks in Berlin. These events highlight the presence of these birds in the city and encourage reflection on urban biodiversity. ​

In Berlin, Germany, can we imagine a future where the fusion of music and nature has given rise to Birdsong DJ Battles. Young DJs incorporate real-time birdsong samples into their sets, performing in community gardens and green spaces.  Residents gather to enjoy the music and vote for the best “eco-mix,” with winners awarded plots to grow their own food? ​

​The Bicycle Repair Raves – Amsterdam, Netherlands

Community and bike building: Located in Amsterdam Oost, Fietskliniek is a socially engaged bike workspace situated within the social-political center NieuwLand. They focus on recycling and repairing various types of bicycles using secondhand parts. The workspace offers DIY nights, allowing individuals to repair their bikes with provided tools and guidance. These sessions foster community involvement and promote sustainable practices. ​

The “Build Your Own Bike” program in Tel Aviv is a real and impactful initiative. Operated by Pnimeet, a community-focused organization, the program offers workshops where individuals can repair and construct their own bicycles. For an annual fee of 150 shekels, participants gain access to tools, spare parts, and guidance from volunteers, promoting sustainability by reducing waste and fostering a sense of community. ​

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There is a beautiful stretch of forest in Bentonville, Arkansas called, “Coler Mountain Bike Preserve.” It is an amazing chunk of land with several mountain bike trails throughout and one  main drag. There’s even delicious coffee at a place called Airship in the middle. There are two  bridges bookending the main drag a little over a mile apart from each other, I had the pleasure  of composing sound for them.

Covered Bridge ONE and El Segundo are two separate, yet  connected, sound pieces that play for several hours a day. Covered Bridge ONE is a multi-channel piece for electric guitar that has been bowed, scraped, rubbed and plucked. El  Segundo Is a multi channel piece for Clarinet and Bass Clarinet. Each played by a solar  powered sound system that begins shortly after sunrise and ends shortly after sunset. Both are based on the chord C# Suspended 2nd. 

The idea was to make something that would welcome people as the entered the park. A burst of sonic gratitude, and also for those returning a welcome home. I wanted to make something that engulfed the participant but also allowed the ambient sounds of the environment to also be heard in the mix, bugs, wind, water, leaves, cycle sounds etc.

The world is already a  beautiful place I’m just trying to enhance little parts of it here and there.  

Our lives have become so cluttered with luxury and convenience it is quite refreshing to get outside and just breathe and listen. The older I get the more intrigued by the natural world I  become. Weather is a never ending series of systems colliding with each other. And it’s beautiful.

Through this process with my work I feel more in common with a farmer than an architect. I have an ongoing relationship with the weather and natural world unlike anything I’ve  experienced before. 

In 2009 I went to the desert with David Sanche-Burr and Richard Vosseller to make art using  sustainable energy outside. We went to the Goldwell Open Air Museum in Rhyolite, NV and created Off The Grid. My piece “Sun Boxes,’ Changed everything for me. It’s a solar powered sound installation, comprised of 20 speakers all making a Bb Chord.

I have come to sound art and installation work from the world of punk rock. Although I loved being on stage, the barrier between the audience and the performer felt confining. I wanted to make something that didn’t have that barrier. I wanted to make something that people could feel like they were apart of. Once I made my way outside I saw no reason to go back inside. I wanted to make work that  improvises with mother nature.  

Covered Bridge ONE and El Segundo are presented as music but I think it’s something else.  Recently a friend of mine sent me a video of a beautiful crane in the water under Covered Bridge ONE. It was just being a bird elegantly drinking from the water while my friend was on her walk. The video was cool: I could hear the sounds of the Bridge in the background. My friend said, “Even birds like your work. Congratulations.”  

It really struck me because I felt like, once again, it’s presented as a composition, but these pieces give you just a moment of pause to realize that you are part of some thing way bigger than you. Isn’t that what we’re all after? So the medium is not sound but sound is used as a vehicle to offer the participant a moment of stillness. To be outside and reminded that I am merely one tiny part in the world feels so empowering. 

I had a similar experience myself while testing the sound system for El Segundo. I sat in the  grass and listened to the audio as leaves fell from trees taking their last graceful moments before they go back to the earth. It was beautiful and an honor to be witness to this process.

Craig Colorusso has been exploring the intersection of sound, light, and space through sculpture since 2000. His installations consist of wood, metal, fabric, and electronics.

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My husband is a musician who built a foundation for ethnic music in the Middle East. He can play many instruments and they took years to learn. Usually when you play one string instrument well, like the guitar, you can pick up others with ease, like the banjo or the Turkish jumbush. Most learning of most conventional instruments are hard to learn and take about 10,000 hours of practice to master. But there are some you can pick up and enjoy which lets you be part of the music from your first beat or tap without knowing music theory or how to read music. 

And it turns out that a number of these instruments, special as they are, are also made by hand. 

How to choose an intuitive instrument?

Ocarinas which I’ve made in my pottery studio, singing bowls played by Buddish monks or your yoga teacher in LA, tongue drums or a hang drum, whistles, steel drums, cajon (the drum beat box which we have at home – and which also makes a good stool when playing on the keyboard), kalimba, a ktak, a snare drum you can wear which we also own – all these instruments have a simple architecture and can be understood how to be played by touching and feeling and experimenting. You could say, even a piano, if you have a bit of patience. 

Idiophones –– drums, castanets, the tambourine, a triangle ––  are all intuitive instruments because they create the sound by the instrument’s vibration, and some of them are tuned to resonate within a range of harmonious pitch (like the hang drum or steel drum or even the Turkish saz which is a string instrument) — so you can start tapping, whistling, or striking and creating some melody. 

Once I brought a saz to a party and pretended I was a master saz player and people who weren’t musicians believed me. Any stroke of the saz (it’s a Turkish lute) sounds like angel’s wings. I am not kidding. After a while though without knowing much theory it gets boring. 

The nice thing about intuitive instruments is that they invite you in and you can enjoy from day 1 as you learn. Which is not true for a tuba, a saxophone or a violin. All of these have very steep learning curves. 

The downside of the most intuitive instruments is that you are limited in notes/pitches/resonance. You will never be able to reproduce all the beauty of Mozart’s sonata using a whistle, kazoo or a set of spoons, but in Covid times, a nice sounding instrument at home could beat the speeches of the early days of violin or trumpet. 

Over the years there is one instrument I have seen loved by musicians and novices alike. Some people call it the hang drum, though it reminds me very much of the fine-tuned steel drums I used to hear in the Carribean. I guess you could make one and many people did when the waiting list for the original Swiss version was 3 years. Luckily some new hang drums have come on the market. I am going to reach out to the company to send me one to try. It’s called the RAV Vast. 

The RAV Vast is a steel tongue drum hand-crafted to emit a perfectly balanced pitch and sonorous, harp-alike voice. For calling angels? The progression of notes tuned on 9 tongues may vary from scale to scale (and if you want to make a band of one) you can choose 20 scales, each tuned to provide various voices and tones on different scales. The diversity lets you choose one for ethnic music or even for being part of Jazz standards –– as long as you know the key. I like to support this company because they priced their handpan drums at a price that most people can afford. If something costs too much like some of the original hang drum makers do it will only be played by the rich.

With all hang drums, each tongue or section on the flying-saucer like drum has up to 7 overtones that makes the tone of the drum deep and wide simultaneously. Imagine playing seven keys on the piano together. Drums like the RAV Vast hang drum can be played by anyone as all the notes of the drum sound harmoniously together. Basically, if the more experienced musicians know the key of your drum, you are good to jam. 

And like I mentioned above, professionals also love the hang drum. We’ve hosted many music festivals at our home in Jaffa over the years and there is always a hang drum part of at least one set, often many. Mainly because it’s versatile, offering endless options. Simple melodies can be learned and taught to children, or it can be played as part of a meditative retreat in the desert while teaching yoga or as a funny cover band version of Mozart.  No planning needed. Your unconscious can guide you. 

How to play a handpan drum?

There’s no right or wrong way to play a hang drum, also known as a handpan drum. Ascending pitches are played in a zigzag order from the bottom to the top. The lowest note – called the Ding – and it is found in the center of the drum.  The drum sits in your lap with the lower notes close to you by playing the progression: central note – bottom note – side notes – top notes. 

If you can do it several times slowly, you can remember the location of the notes. You can also use stickers to remember the notation (for advanced musicians), this way you’ll be able to learn to play the “sheet” music quicker. 

Experiment with the number of notes you play progressively and simultaneously and their order. Do you know that you are playing music already? Keep on practicing, involve your palms, fingers, and knuckles while playing. Using mallets or wooden sticks will let you produce a different kind of melody and a different sound. Let the instrument guide you and give a clue to creating an endless number of beautiful compositions. Your intuition will guide you. A lovely thing. 

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I remember that when I visited Byblos, in the Jbeil district of Lebanon, in the summer of 2011, I felt like a true beholder of history. Historians agree that it’s the second oldest continuously-inhabited city on earth, runner-up only to the Palestinian city of Jericho. I sat at Feniqia restaurant in the heart of the old Phoenician city, eating shanklish cheese and tabbouleh and imagining life in that very spot, if time were to rewind 7,000 years.

Since about 5,000 BCE, people have been walking the streets of this city. Bartering turned into buying and selling; hunting and gathering was first conducted out in nature, but in the present day, it all goes down in the local souk. Undoubtedly, homemakers hunt for the freshest red peppers to use for muhammara (see our recipe here) and gather the heartiest chickpeas for making hummus, a recipe that has been perfected over generations.

Through successful trade with Egypt, Byblos grew from a small village to a wealthy city. Today still it thrives, by way of a modern phenomenon called tourism, attracting travelers like me looking for a journey back in time.

Byblos was named the 2016 Arab Tourism Capital by the Arab Council of Tourism. Green Prophet was here to salute Erbil and Sharjah as the Arab Tourism Capitals of 2014 and 2015, respectively.

Although thousands of tourists visit Lebanon every year, with Byblos as the top of their to-see lists, municipal leaders say they expect an increase in tourism by up to 30 percent, in the foreseeable future. There are plans to inaugurate five-star international hotel chains and, well, keep up the good work with the Lebanese cooking.

Archaeologically, Byblos is fascinating. It is home to Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Greek and Roman ruins, including a Church of St. John the Baptist and a restored 12^th century Crusader castle.

The Byblos International Festival is an annual summer music festival and the biggest public event in Lebanon. Musicians and singers from all over the world, including but not limited to the Middle East, fill the air with everything from classical sounds to pop tunes. For the last few years, the municipality has projected a brief 3D animation movie showing historical highlights of Byblos on tower walls in the fishermen’s harbor.

Efforts for environmental sustainability are also at work. The air in Byblos is cleaner than it has been in a while. With aims to make Byblos more pedestrian-friendly, local leaders recently closed part of the old city to vehicles after 4pm on weekdays and noon on weekends. With decreased air pollution and less noise, visitors will be breathing fresh air in this very old city.

I’d recommend a few days in Byblos, although it could easily be made into a day trip from Beirut. I think spending more than 24 hours there only makes sense, for you’ll be stepping far, far back in time and there’s a lot of ground to cover!

What will the Arab Tourism Capital of 2017 be? Comment below with your guesses.

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The Darb 1718 festival engaged many of the nation’s green NGOs and initiatives, including Green and Dayma. Their aim was to raise awareness about the dire need for more recycling. Egyptian academics and policy makers have recently raised the alarm about a waste management crisis in Egypt.

This festival stressed the importance of the individual and empowering the public to bring about change. One of the cornerstones of the festival was an initiative that encouraged people to bring old and used items with them. The festival provided clear instructions on what could and what could not be recycled.

Related: See how Tetra Pak is boosting its sustainability agenda in Cairo

The festival was free, and clear Arabic information was available, which allowed non-English speakers new access to some of the information and literature available on the subject in English. Studies have proven digital literacy intrinsically impacts community awareness and local agricultural markets. The general lack of public awareness is a challenge for environmental agencies across the Middle East. But this young generation thrives on new media, and the amount of Arabic content available online is rapidly increasing. Investing in environmental education and literacy are pivotal steps towards creating a culture of recycling in the Middle East.

::Daily News Egypt 

Image of Cairo, Egypt via Shutterstock 

Read more about Egypt:

Egyptian Library is Sustainable Regional Role Model

Egypt Makes Recycling A Priority

Booksellers in Egypt Targeted by Security Forces (PHOTOS)

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As an avid “world music” listener – although I don’t like this term but I still haven’t found a better one- it is always an immense pleasure to discover hidden musical gems. One organization that feeds you with just these jewels is radio Groovalizacion.  Greenprophet interviews founder Toni Polo to find out why and how radio Groovalization and its music is a successful medium through which people from the Middle East and North Africa can express, communicate and continue traditions.

Convinced that art and culture can raise social awareness, Ton Polo has been coordinating various intercultural schemes since 2006, either as a film director, radio journalist, DJ or cultural manager of his project “Migratory Music ”. He has been involved in various activities in relation with music, immigration, identities and integration collaborating with several NGOs and associations in Argentina, Spain, Senegal, Morocco, Turkey, Portugal and Mali.

Emigration from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to Europe has been an important political and economic topic in the past ten to fifteen years- in 2010 the stock of documented migrants was 18.1 million or 5.3% of the MENA region population. However little is discussed on the cultural, traditional and artistic impact migration is having on the country of origin and departure.

In terms of music, what does emigration mean for the MENA region, particularly the Maghreb countries such as Morocco, Libya, Algeria, and Tunisia – where many young people are leaving their homeland and perhaps foregoing their own traditional lifestyles, practices and rituals for more “westernized” ones?  

Music is always an interesting way to analyze what is going on in terms of politics, demography or economics. Nowadays with the Internet; migration, exchange and the influence across the Mediterranean are stronger than ever. The way young people in these countries consume have changed rapidly in the last 30 years and consequently so have the artistic and cultural tendencies.  In these transformative processes there is always an initial period of imitation, in which artists tend to copy what is seen or heard from the TV, radio, press and internet. However, interestingly, there is a second period where artists and musicians try to recuperate and rediscover their own roots.

I believe in the last ten years, there has been a new generation of artists in many of the MENA countries who are more conscious of their origins and try to build on their local musical roots by blending in global influences such as Hip-Hop, Jazz, Reggae, Funk. Typically these are the artist who migrated or lived abroad, while those that have not migrated tend to copy western musıc because they appreciate their own wealth less.

At the same time, the concept of emigration in the MENA has been changing in the past 5 years. In 2007, when I was shooting a documentary “The colors of Tea” about young musicians in Morocco such as Darga, Zazz Band, Style Souss, Amarg Fusion or Ganga Vibes, many of the musicians we met told to us they didn’t want to leave theır country, instead they want to fight against the problems that exist in their own country such as corruption, Woman’s Rights and democracy. I think this feeling of pride and responsibility has increased with the crisis as we can see from the “Arab Spring”, this also means that many of the themes of the songs are also changing.

How does radio groovalizacion “give a voice” to different cultures and social issues across the MENA region specifically?

I founded Groovalizacion with a French friend who has origins from Morocco, since the beginning we gave special attention to artists in this region because we wanted to provide Europeans with a contemporary vision of the  MENA while demystifying stereotypes. Since then we broadcast regularly albums and artist from this region such as Dhafer Youssef from Tunisia, Darga from Morocco, Aziza Brahim from Sahraoui (Western Sahara)  or Ibrahim Maalouf from Lebanon.

Aziza Brahim has transformed some poems of Ljarda Mint Mabroc, a poet known amongst the Sahraouis, into music. They all evoke the struggle for independence of the Sahraoui people, the difficulty of living in exile and the heroic deaths at the Polisario Front.

Personally, I have made some research on the MENA region as part of my project “Migratory Music”, with “The colors of tea” and another project in 2010 and 2011 called “Bosphoroads” about the blend between tradition and modernity in contemporary Turkish music. But also in one of my latest projects about music from Valencia called “Mediterraquis” . I like to speak about the connections between music from several parts of the Mediterranean sea to show that in all these regıons from Spain to Syria, or from Greece to Algeria,  are more connected than we  think in cultural terms.

With this in mind, one of the main ideas of Groovalzaicon is to create a global platform which focuses on music in terms of content but also in terms of the creators, the people. This way we are not only “giving a voice” to social and political issues but also we are “giving a voice” to specific people and populations.  We are now trying to expand to include journalist, musicians, visual artists or filmmakers from these countries in order to include a wider variety of creativity from this area.

In your experience, are the themes that migrant musicians cover in their songs different from those that non-migrants cover in the same region?  

For me is hard to speak about the lyrics and the themes of this music because many times the songs are in Arabic or other local languages. But I think that in general, between the artists who live abroad it’s more common to find lyrics about the local government or the political situation because in many MENA countries there is still a strong censorship. Even in a country that we consider democratic such as Turkey, I remember an interview with the band Babazula where they spoke about the strong censorship suffered by Turkish musicians nowadays. I think the voice and the work of these migrant artists have been pivotal in changing the mentality of the local people, who start to become more conscientious about the responsibilities of their own governments.

In recent years, how much “voice” are marginalized or “minority” groups such as the Tuareg, Berbers, Bedouins and Druze gaining through music? Is radio groovalizacion providing a platform for them?

For Groovalizacion it is very important to give a voice to minorities all over the world because we really believe that the power and the health of a society depend of the diversity and tolerance it has. Personally I have developed several projects trying to reinforce the cultural diversity in some of these countries. For example, in Mali I started a radio-show called “Mundo Mali” in partnership with a communitarian radio called Radio Kayira , and a video-series called Bamakosmos. In both I interview many of the ethnic groups that are present in Mali, some of them with deep problems of integration and tolerance, like the Tuaregs. And as we are seeing now with the current situation in Northern Mali, tolerance, integration and respect has to be supported by the politicians because if not fights, radicalism and conflict could appear everywhere, in Mali, Syria or France. Music plays an important role in diffusing messages of tolerance and unity. Radio Groovalizacion has provided a platform of podcasts, articles, live events and more for  many “minority” artists especially from  Western Sahara.

If you had to describe radio groovalizacion with 1 adjective, 1 verb, 1 noun and 1 goal what would they be?

Nomad, travel, journey, share sounds to connect people.

:: Radio Groovalizacion

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