Aref is a Palestinian artist from Jerusalem. He loves Arabic music in all its forms. He grew up in a simple and was raised to love music and the arts since childhood. During his musical journey and due to his passion for making, maintaining and repairing musical instruments, he decided to study the manufacture of eastern and western stringed musical instruments.
Aref studied music, where he started his musical journey with the violin, until he became multi-talented and plays more than one musical instrument, including the qanun, oud, and bouzouki. Aref combined music with carpentry profession which his family was famous for. His love for music was manifested through his passion for the carpentry profession, through which the idea of learning to make musical instruments was born, and with which Aref began his academic life.
Arefbecame a professional manufacturer of various eastern and western wooden musical instruments, as his name also became a trademark in the Palestinian and Arab musical markets, for the workshop produces various musical instruments designed with precision and of very high quality, preserving their classical Arab character and attractive modern designs. Aref is keen to create a story from every instrument, as every instrument that emerges from under his hands tells a wonderful, angelic musical story.
Aref joined “Antonio Stradivari Institute” in Italy in 2005, to start his academic journey in making musical instruments, where he learned the manufacture and restoration of the violin, continuing his journey after that by enrolling in the “University of” Zwickau ” in Germany in 2008, to obtain a BA degree in the manufacture of stringed instruments with the technology of bow and percussion, moving after that to Istanbul to improve in knowledge and experience, where he met and studied at the hands of the most important Turkish instruments makers, to crystallize his creativity and intellectual activity in the process of manufacturing, repair and maintenance.
Aref opened his workshop in the old city of Beit Sahour in 2015, as the beauty, nobility and history of the old town in the City of Shepherds Beit Sahour formed the right incubator and the appropriate place for workshop, which contributes to the manufacture of the heritage and the Palestinian cultural, artistic, musical and professional history, as this workshop is considered the first step for this Jerusalemite artist towards his dream of opening an academy to teach making and restoring musical instruments in Palestine, which will be followed by the birth of a new generation of musicians, with a different creative thought and a distinctive musical outlook.
Since the birth and opening of the workshop in 2015, Aref has produced many musical instruments that cover all levels, both educational and professional, with high quality, making that workshop a well-known name in the Palestinian musical and artistic community.
As for creativity, that is another story, as Aref excelled in developing the qanun instrument in two parts:
Part One: the development of the qanun, by finding effective solutions to the problems of sound and tunefulness in terms of purity and stability in the character of the instrument, which in turn led to the birth of new mechanisms and tools created by Aref to help him in work and production, in addition to creating a new technology in terms of form and performance in the so-called thresholds. (or the nose), which is one of the elements of the qanun instrument that plays a major role in the tuning stability and the instrument’s sound, in addition to the updates and development that Aref introduced to this particular instruments to provide a high purity in its sound and performance.
Part Two: building and developing the small qanun (Baby Qanun) for young children who are amateurs and lovers of the instrument, as it spared them the suffering from weight with its large and well-known size, as the baby qanun is one of the most important creations of Aref, which contains high quality, striking shape, purity in sound, and ancient design, embodying the Arab musical and artistic history of these little hands, to set off towards an artistic, musical, academic and educational future that contributes to the creation of a creative, and educated generation.
