Montreal trio showcases Syrian culture through music

The Syrian Trio performed together in Montreal at Kawalees on Parc Avenue on January 12.

The band blends the sounds of the oud, goblet drum, and zither in order to take their audience on a journey between Aleppo, Damascus, and Palmyra, their hometowns.

“I started learning because I had a love for music since I was a little kid,” said musician Shady Al Shamas. “And since then, the oud was definitely an actual choice for me to be able to sing and play together as well as kind of enjoy my culture, my heritage, which is the Middle Eastern type of music.”

The band was formed in 2019 after a spontaneous jam session at Concordia University.

“It started by meeting Shady and Hady at Concordia University,” explained member of the group, Karam Helou. “We played together and we recorded a song and posted it on Facebook and it was really good.”

That’s when they decided to name the band Syrian Trio.

“We got the opportunity to play in several festivals around Montreal such as Festival du Monde Arabe, and Festival Oriantalys, and we have our regular gigs in Kawalees,” explained Al Shamas. “So yeah, it started as a spontaneous jam and now here we are.”

For the group, music is one of the ways they can preserve their Syrian identity and introduce the culture to Canadians.

“The most important thing for us is to share this music with the audience and to sing together and jam together. That’s basically what we want, is to us celebrate our roots and heritage and where we come from because this nostalgia keeps us all close together,” said Al Shamas.