With vibrant musical performances, the United States Air Forces Central Band (AFCENT) not only aims at playing music but also building cultural bridges between peoples.
As an official musical band, they perform in different countries to many people from different walks of life. In their recent visit to Cairo, the band performed a number of concerts in different places in Cairo including the US embassy, the Pyramids and the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, where they performed with Egyptian percussionist Saeed el Artist.
In this concert, the band fuses American with Egyptian music and came up with new beats that wooed Egyptian audiences.
In one of the songs, the band inserted Egyptian instruments like the flute.
“I was very excited for the concert. I tried to study on my own rek, which is like a small tambourine and it’s just unlike anything that I’ve ever played before,” said the band’s drummer Brian.
Coming from a different background, language was no barrier for AFCENT during their concerts here.
“Spoken language doesn’t matter when it comes to music, even if music is different, it is so easily fused. When you have the chance to work with other artists you see how music is universal,” said Brain, another band member.
“Yet there is a difference between Egyptian and American music but there are still rhythms in common,” one of the Brians said.
Audiences interacted with the band and danced to their tunes.
Melissa, a vocalist in the band, sai the energy of the audience was phenomenal.
“We had to put together what we would like to play and best use all the skills of the band while also offering parts of our musical heritage across the decades in America,” Melissa said.
“People are very friendly. The night life is amazing. It seems like people know how to enjoy their time. And there are good foods,” Melissa added.
The band consists of a versatile group of musicians that showcase a wide variety of music and popular American songs. It provides music for official functions, and community relations. These include embassy ceremonies and public engagements with the people of the country in which it is visiting. Its primary area of responsibility consists of the countries in the Middle East and Central Asia.
“This job has enabled me as a musician to meet people from very diverse cultures all around the world, people who are very rich, people who are very not. Music allows us to find the similarities. It’s easy to open the newspaper and read about the conflict, but when we get a chance to play music together and get to know each other. That’s when we can have a real conversation even if we can’t necessarily understand each other,” said Brain, the band’s planner.
As a military band, they believe that when it comes to military music it’s less of the muscles and more of a mind.
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