Although he is self-taught, with no music education, George explains that music has kept him sane through some difficult times, giving him a strong will to survive.
George Nouneh is a self-taught musician, and a refugee from Syria, who now lives in Pafos.
George Nouneh was a dreamy teenager growing up in Damascus before the war, listening to hip-hop and writing and producing his own rap lyrics and music from home. Gradually he explored more and more genres as a keen listener and self-taught composer of music. But his passion was the guitar. “I sat down one day with my cousin’s guitar in my hands, trying to get some meaningful sounds out of it; being too stressed and nervous and lost between the frets and the sounds that they make, I was thinking that I’d never be able to play on that marvelous instrument,” George says, looking back. Now aged 26, he will be playing a solo piece with the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra in Nicosia on the occasion of World Refugee Day.
Fleeing his native Syria four years ago to escape the war, George spent some time in Turkey, and then undertook the dangers of the sea and smugglers to reach Greece; from there he was brought to Cyprus in 2016 under the Relocation Scheme. Today George is a refugee living in Pafos. After years of teaching himself to play, sadly he had to leave his three guitars behind – two electric and one classical – in a corner of his room. “After almost a year being in Cyprus, I finally got the chance to put my hands on a guitar again,” George recalls. “I felt that I had lost most of my abilities, and forgot most of what I used to play, and even what I composed; but day after day, I got most of it back.”
A university graduate who studied English Literature, George has worked in sales, finance and marketing. He writes poetry and has crafted his first novel, but music is his great love. Although he is self-taught, with no music education, George explains that music has kept him sane through some difficult times, giving him a strong will to survive. His positive outlook is an example to all: “In spite of all that has happened I remain a calm and sociable kind of guy. I believe that learning never stops and my motivation to keep going and move forward has been driven by my desire to better my circumstances, enhance my qualifications and improve my life chances.”
Since last October, when he responded to an announcement from the UNHCR Office calling for refugee musicians, George has been invited to work alongside the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra, under the artistic direction of Jens Georg Bachmann, to prepare for a solo performance on 20 June 2018 in a Refugee Solidarity Concert on the occasion of World Refugee Day. His dream is to leave something in the world, “a memory, something to be remembered, to be immortal, musically.” His landmark performance in Nicosia will hopefully be the first of many more to come in George achieving his ambition.
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