Jordanian musician to perform in the area as part of World Fest

Music is in her blood, which flows from her home country of Jordan through cities of the world to the stage at the Herbert L. Williams Theatre in Marinette.

Farah Siraj will share her love of all music when she visits Marinette and Menominee counties next week. From Monday, Feb.12, through Saturday, Feb.17, she and her musical partners will perform and interact with elementary through high-school age students at multiple locations.

She can’t wait.

“I love to share my music,” she said. “I have my own personal compositions or traditional folk songs.”

Farah will bring her blend of Middle Eastern, Spanish and American music to the area as part of her week-long residency with the World Fest program, funded by Arts Midwest and the local World Fest Marinette/Menominee sponsors.

Arts Midwest’s World Fest program brings international musicians to Midwestern community to foster an understanding of an appreciation for global uniqueness and differences.

Farah started her three-week tour with the Arts Midwest World Fest this week in Oskaloosa, Iowa, and travels to Marinette and Menominee and then on to Freeport, Ill.

Farah said she has worked with schools and educational programs in the past, but has never done a program like the World Fest residency. “That’s going to be really fun and interesting to be able to do that, because it’s a very unique program in the way it offers music to everybody in the community.”

She will perform for students in northern Marinette County Monday, moving to the south on Tuesday and then travel to Stephenson and Menominee on Thursday, said Kim Brooks, volunteer coordinator of World Fest Marinette/Menominee. Brooks said educational information is shared in advance with schools to help teachers plan lessons in conjunction with the visits from World Fest musicians.

“Each of these residencies has been really important,” Brooks said of the three-year World Fest commitment that started in late 2022. “It brings a new piece of the world to our community.”

Brooks said that she is excited to have Farah Siraj share her musical talents and her cultural knowledge about her country of Jordan.

“Jordan is a small country, so not a lot of people in the U.S. know a lot about Jordan, but it’s always fun to share my heritage with people who are curious to learn about it,” Farah said. “As a musician, it is really fun, because I get to share my music, the very rich musical heritage of my country, mixed in with my own personal compositions.”

In addition to the numerous schools Farah and her company will visit during the week, they will perform in a free community concert at 6 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 17, at the Herbert L. Williams Theatre on the Bay at UW-Green Bay Marinette campus. While the concert is free, tickets are required. Tickets are available at Main Street Antique Mall, Stephenson National Bank & Trust and the Theatre on The Bay box office.

During her interview Thursday, Farah said she was excited about her upcoming trip.

“It’s my favorite part of being a musician,” she said. “I love touring. It is really fun, it’s exciting. I meet people from everywhere and get to have wonderful experiences and connect with people that I wouldn’t have the chance to if it wasn’t for music and touring.”

The hardest part about touring, she said, is not having enough time on the road to “stay in a place because I like it,” and “missing loved ones. Being away from home and touring is exciting, but there’s also a missing element — and that does play into a lot of my compositions.”

After her World Fest tour, Farah will work on finishing an album she will release later this year. She has another tour planned for the Northeast in April and May and then Denver.

This will be her first album since 2020.

She said she writes most of her songs on her albums, “unless I am doing my take on folk music from the Arab world.”

“I’ve worked with putting music to poems of different poets,” she said, sharing that there will be two songs she will perform on her tour based on 12th Century poems. “I do work with words that are not mine, but the melody is almost always mine.

“When I read a poem, if it inspires me, a lot of time the melody just comes in one sitting — it just happens.”

She will admit, “I have always been a musician — since I was 3, I was onstage … it’s what I know. People ask ‘how did you choose music?’ And I say I didn’t, music chose me.”

Most of her family still lives in Jordan, and despite her dual U.S./Jordan citizenship, she shares that she is a Jordanian at her core.

“When I moved from Jordan and lived in Europe, Spain and here, my identity was often, by others, tied to Jordan — and I felt more Jordanian abroad because I was one of the only ones. And as I was abroad and homesick, a lot of the folk songs that I used to listen to growing up in Jordan, I (would) sing them just to smooth myself a little bit.”

Her unique musical style comes from many locations. “I have had a lot of influences in my music — it’s hard to narrow it down,” she said. She writes in English, Arabic and Spanish, so it’s no surprise that her influences have come from Spain, the Middle East, Latin America and the United States.

She said Arabic musicians such as Umm Kulthum and Souad Massi, as well as Spanish artists Paco de Lucia and Cameron de la Isla, are among her favorites, “along with many different flamenco artists.” In the United States, it has always been Tracy Chapman, Mariah Carrey and Whitney Houston.

Farah said that the blend of many styles “shows in my way of singing — that it is not traditional to any sense…in that, I may be Jordanian, but I’m not a traditional Jordanian artist — I’m a contemporary artist.”

She said evidence of that can be heard in the harmonies used in her music. “Traditional Arabic music does not have harmony … and I include harmony in my music, even when I am performing music from my cultural heritage.”

She looks forward to visiting these small cities in the Midwest on her tour. “The intent of my visit is to share the beautiful culture of my beloved homeland and to promote understanding and tolerance through music.”

“I love the charm of small communities, where everyone knows everybody, and everyone participates in the culture of the city,” she said. “For me, that’s what makes it so special. People are very friendly and always going the extra mile to help.”