Middle Eastern Tea Hour Recap
Students of Arabic, Hebrew, Persian and Turkish languages all came together on Wednesday, March 28th for a Middle Eastern Tea hour. Students enjoyed the opportunity to meet classmates and fellow students of other languages as well as meet with WLL faculty members. At the tea, students were able to practice their speaking, writing, and communication, as well as learn some new language skills. See below for some photos from the event.
During the Middle East Tea Hour, Persian language student, Danial Shariat (CAS ’20) performed a piece of music on the Santur. Danial writes, “The Santur is an ancient instrument dating back many centuries. While many cultures have some form of it (such as Indian and European) the Persian version of the instrument has some key differences. There are two sets of strings, each with 9 notes, and each note has 4 individual strings. Making for a total of 72 strings. It is tuned to a Persian scale that uses quatertones, which are notes that are in between the standard notes of Western scales. These notes don’t exist in Western music and give the instrument and Persian music in general a very unique sound. The instrument is often used as the melodic, solo instrument that accompanies a vocalist or poetry.”
