Benefit Concert: Supporting Refugees

Musician and activist Paul Gulda spoke at the TVR Salon on June 10th with his friend Adalat Khan, an Asylum Seeker from the Swat region of Pakistan where dozens of schools have been bombed and hundreds of lives destroyed in the aftermath of the ongoing fighting.  Ordinary citizens are being caught between government forces, Taliban, and the drones used by the American military.

To address the issue, Gulda has organized a concert on 18 June, which will include a performance of Franz Schubert's Wanderer.

The concert will begins at 19:00 in front of the Servitenkirche, 1090 Vienna. In case of bad weather,  the concert will be held at the Afro-Asiatisches Institut, Türkenstraße, 1090 Vienna.

 

The lyrics recount the tale of refugees:

I come down from the mountains,

The valley dims, the sea roars.

I wander silently and am somewhat unhappy,

And my sighs always ask "Where?"

The sun seems so cold to me here,

The flowers faded, the life old,

And what they say has an empty sound;

I am a stranger everywhere.

Where are you, my dear land?

Sought and brought to mind, yet never known,

That land, so hopefully green,

That land, where my roses bloom,

Where my friends wander

Where my dead ones rise from the dead,

That land where they speak my language,

Oh land, where are you?

I wander silently and am somewhat unhappy,

And my sighs always ask "Where?"

In a ghostly breath it calls back to me,

"There, where you are not, there is your happiness."

 

TVR Kaffeehaus interview with Paul Gulda:

http://www.viennareview.net/on-the-town/kaffeehaus/paul-gulda-improvising-a-life-of-art-and-activism

TVR coverage of  the asylum seekers protest in the Votivkirche:

http://www.viennareview.net/news/austria/seeking-sanctuary-refugees-protest-asylum-law

Petition to alter Austrian asylum policy:

www.gegen-unmenschlichkeit.at