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A new artistic project has been launched by the indefatigable Dr. Tony Karam, in collaboration with the Chairman of the Faculty of Architecture, Art and Design at Notre Dame University (NDU), Dr. Salim Akl, as well as the dean of the same faculty, Dr. Karen Abou Jaoudé, and under the patronage of the president of NDU, Reverend Father Béchara Khoury.
To inaugurate a new cycle of exhibitions to be held in this art faculty, Dr. Tony Karam, a pianist of international renown, gave a charity piano concert. All the proceeds from this musical event were donated as financial aid to needy students at NDU.
The concert, entitled Musical Fantasies, delighted more than 300 spectators in the Issam Farès amphitheater. Dr. Tony Karam brilliantly conveyed the complex emotions found in Scriabin’s work. Through his performance, the audience was transported into a whirlwind of feelings, from sadness to anger and rage, beautifully rendered by the pianist’s play.
After taking the audience into a dreamlike world where all realities come to life, with a piece by Schumann written for his four-year-old daughter, Dr. Karam performed a piece of his own composition, entitled Duality. According to him, sometimes it only takes a moment to realize that true safety lies only in the world of dreams, a realm that no negative sentiment can penetrate. Thus, the artist’s pain, beautifully set to music through notes played on the keyboard of dueling emotions, turns into beauty.
Through these musical fantasies, the pianist poet made his audience dream, notably with the Ephemeral Waltz by the great Abdelrahman El Bacha, after a breathtaking exercise on two Rachmaninoff preludes.
The audience was amazed by the strength of the art unleashed by the pianist on the grand piano, which came to life at the center of the amphitheater. The music notes rose as the artist’s hands danced in a frenetic cadence.
Liszt’s La Campanella, known as the most difficult piece to perform, moved the audience. People stood up, applauded, and cried. The piano seemed to soar, the music piercing through the spirits.
The concert concluded with Liszt’s Spanish Rhapsody, reinterpreted by Karam, a melody with multiple layers where the intensity of the strings and octaves clashed like emotions in full fury, under a shower of applause.
Transported by the magic of musical sensations, the visitors then headed to the exhibition hall of the Faculty of Architecture, Art and Design to attend the opening of Wissam Melhem’s exhibition.
Entitled Fables, this latest exhibition marks a turning point in the artist’s career. “Wissam is an artist who transcribes a story onto canvas in an elegant, simple yet complex form,” writes Dr. Antoine Karam, the curator of the exhibition.
Wissam Melhem is a professional architect, painter and sculptor. His art is characterized by the representation of five main elements: the Human, the City, the Crown, the Bird and the Cloud. In this exhibition, he transcribes the fables of everyday life onto his canvases and depicts twelve moments painted as life messages.
The artist explains, “I draw what my brain cannot digest. We are reminded of the eternal dance between the individual and the collective, the self and the other, the known and the unknown. Ultimately, the project work serves as a mirror to our own existence, inviting us to explore the vast and enigmatic landscape of human experience.”
In his colorful allegories on linen and jute canvases, Wissam Melhem creates works where the abstraction of forms blends with fantasy (close to Dr. Karam’s music) to convey his fabulous messages, perceived differently by each visitor. The artist thus achieves a project of deep emotional depth, felt through the mixed techniques used and the power of poetic abstraction.
“Art is a fantasy, a poetic reconciliation, an opportunity to realize a utopian vision for the future,” he states. And so, he transports us into this multitude of stories and fables that we will have the pleasure to admire at NDU until April 16.
