“18 Strings Harp Guitar”

Cultural Season 16 has already begun! But the first event to be featured on this blog will be the third Music Circle concert of the season; which was on Wednesday November 3^rd.

The performance was titled “18 Strings Harp Guitar” and the musician was Jason Carter. Jason Carter first picked up the guitar at the age of 5 and started playing the harp guitar at 18. He composes his own music and each song expresses experiences from his travels. Jason had visited Kuwait before and loves to interact with local musicians wherever he goes.

As he stepped on to the stage, the audience was eager and excited to see him play this interesting instrument. Before starting his performance he gave the audience an introduction to the harp guitar.

Harp Guitar is a 300 year old instrument. No music was written for this instrument so every one who played it was able to perform in their own way producing their own unique sound. Jason’s own guitar is a travelling harp guitar from Portugal and it can be taken apart. An original harp guitar would be much bigger than his travel size.

Jason’s choice of songs came from his travels to places such as Estonia, North Korea, and Finland. Each piece allowed the audience to enter a sort of trance. The music took everyone to a different place and time. For a moment, you forget the worries of life and the city outside, and it’s just the audience and the music flowing in the room.

Jason performed 4 songs then was joined by Ali Akbar, a local musician playing traditional Iranian instruments. The first time they played together was the day before the performance! You wouldn’t be able to tell because they played so well together and their different instruments created such beautiful melodies. The last piece played by Jason and Ali was called “Fusion.” It was composed in Kuwait the day before the performance.

The concert was very enjoyable as well as peaceful and meditative. Jason Carter took the audience back in time to where he wrote each song, by sharing a short story from his travels related to each piece. They were often humorous; especially of his bizarre encounters in North Korea.

Jason Carter ended the night by explaining how much he loves music because “music is very powerful, it gives the freedom to think and dream.”

Of course Jason and Ali received a standing ovation, where then the audience rushed to buy a copy of Jason Carter’s album being sold at the DAI store.