Palestine's only piano tuner arrives in Galway

Irish Times

5 days ago

Sameh As'ad left his home in the
West Bank
, in the early hours of Tuesday, July 15th, to begin his journey to Ireland. He left his piano tuning tools, three children, a wife and home in Nablus, and began the 12 hour drive to
Jordan
.
He had planned out this journey in painstaking detail with Ciarán Ryan, a tuner of grand pianos in
Galway city
, with whom he would apprentice with for one month, while his music school was on holidays.
When funding from a
Palestinian
cultural foundation for As'ad's training was diverted to
Gaza
, Ciarán and a neighbour launched a GoFundMe appeal to cover the cost of As'ad's travel to Ireland. They reached their initial goal within 24 hours, with some €3,400 now raised.
'The removal of [culture], the dehumanising process, is something that we're very aware of in our own history,' says Ryan.
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'It's part of your identity, it feeds you. Particularly when people are visited by genocide or ethnic cleansing it's much easier to anonymise them without their culture. So for an awful lot of reasons we really wanted [As'ad's visit] to happen.'.
As soon as As'ad's passport and visa were returned to him from the Irish embassy in Tel Aviv, they used the fundraising money to buy his flights to Ireland.
However, when he arrived in Amman airport in Jordan to board the first plane to Frankfurt, As'ad encountered an issue. Despite having all the necessary documents, 'somewhere in the airport building behind a closed door, someone looked at it from the German side and said no,' Ryan explains.
Late on Wednesday evening, July 16th, Ryan booked As'ad on to another flight to Istanbul, where he wouldn't need a transit visa.
[
Exhausted and imprisoned: how life in the West Bank is getting worse for Palestinians
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]
Sameh As'ad also plays the oud – a pear-shaped, 11-stringed traditional Middle-Eastern instrument. Photograph: Joe O'Shaughnessy
On Thursday afternoon, Ryan received a phone call from an immigration officer in Dublin Airport saying As'ad had arrived. 'It was such a relief to know that he'd made it and was through,' says Ryan.
Alongside his tuning work, As'ad (44) is a music teacher in Nablus and plays the oud – a pear-shaped, 11-stringed traditional Middle-Eastern instrument.
Born into an artistic family, As'ad began learning music when he was 18, after years of searching for a teacher and saving up to buy his own instrument.
'For one or two years I tried to play it by myself. It was difficult, there was no internet or YouTube to help you. So I called this one teacher in Nablus, Ali Hasanein. And I started learning oud with him.
'We're still friends. This oud, he made it,' he says, pointing to his instrument, which travelled with him from Palestine.
As'ad studied music for four years at An-Najah National University, but his hopes of becoming a musician were affected by the second intifada which began in 2000, two years into his degree.
'I finished university, but had difficulty finding a job in music because people needed just to buy food.'
"In my four years of studying in An-Najah, nobody ever came to tune the piano.' Photograph: Joe O'Shaughnessy
He attended workshops in piano tuning run by Nablus the Culture and Music Fund, a Belgian organisation, in 2007 and 2008.
'For me, it was the first time I was studying music inside the piano and the hammers and keys. Even the tools, for everybody were strange, new things.'
'We didn't know that the piano needed to be fixed and tuned – in my four years of studying in An-Najah, nobody ever came to tune the piano.'
In 2009, As'ad was chosen from his original class of 15 to continue his studies for nine months at the European Technological Institute for the Music Professions (ITEMM) in Le Mans, France. The trip was his first time in Europe.
Upon his return to Nablus, he met Donegal-born musician Hannah Gallagher while she was a volunteer in Nablus. Between 2013 and 2016, she held a teaching post in the Edward Said Conservatory in Ramallah and saw As'ad as he came in and out of the school to tune pianos. They became close friends.
The pair would look after the eclectic mix of instruments that their students had bought. 'I grew fascinated by piano tuning through Sameh,' Gallagher says.
While there is an elderly piano tuner living in East Jerusalem, the restrictive ID card system for travelling means that these days, As'ad is the only piano tuner working in Palestine. 'He's carrying the weight of it himself', says Hannah.
'I had heard about Ireland, how they stand with us and our shared history. I told [Hannah] that I would like to learn more about grand pianos and if [she could] find somewhere that I can train in Ireland.' Photograph: Joe O'Shaughnessy
While the cultural scene in Palestine is innovative and 'amazing', according to Gallagher, life as a piano tuner in the West Bank is not easy.
'Occupation seeps into each strata of life, nobody is untouched', she says.
When As'ad travelled to Ramallah last March to tune a piano before a concert, he said it took him three hours to pass through an Israeli military checkpoint, making him late for the appointment.
'It depends on the [soldier's] mood if they want to let you pass or not,' he says. Travel restrictions, in combination with the war in Gaza, means it's 'very complicated' to work there.
'After the war in Gaza, maybe I stayed three, four months without any work with piano tuning because people feel very very sad and frustrated about what is happening.'
But he wanted to continue honing his craft, this time in Ireland. 'I had heard about Ireland, how they stand with us and our shared history. I told [Hannah] that I would like to learn more about grand pianos and if [she could] find somewhere that I can train in Ireland.'
'She told me: 'I found someone, he will welcome you'.'
Piano tuning involves 'understanding how wood breathes and how to bend it to your will,' Ryan explains.
He came to piano tuning not through music but through a love of mechanics: 'I was absolutely fascinated by the way these instruments are put together. The good ones are put together in a way that you can take them apart and renew them – they can have a very long life.
'I suppose a lot of lads would take motorbikes apart and put them back together. I went for something indoors, that's not quite as bad on the hands', he says, laughing.
Piano tuner Ciarán Ryan describes working with Sameh As'ad as a privilege. Photograph: Joe O'Shaughnessy
One of the first tricks he taught As'ad was to use oil from his face to lubricate a peg. The oil is so fine, it doesn't interfere with the wood, he explains.
As'ad and Ryan are relieved that they can work on pianos together at last. 'I trained for two years to become a piano tuner and even now I can't say I'm very good at tuning. It's really not easy. It's not something you learn in two months or three months, you need time. I am learning new things every day,' said As'ad.
The two tuners will attend to pianos all over the country in the coming weeks. Before As'ad returns to Nablus on August 25th to resume teaching music, his training will be put to the test: he will be responsible for checking a piano before a concert in Dublin.
It's a 'privilege' to work with As'ad, says Ryan. 'We march, we demonstrate, we write letters, we encourage our politicians, but this was an opportunity to do something with my trade and share it with someone.
'I know that he's going to go back with something that will make a practical difference to the music community in Palestine.'
Piano tuner Ciarán Ryan and Sameh As'ad in Galway. Photograph: Joe O'Shaughnessy