Author Sandy Tolan

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Produced by: 
KBOO
Program:: 
Air date: 
Tue, 04/21/2015 - 11:00am to 11:30am
Sandy Tolan, author of CHILDREN OF THE STONE: The Power of Music in a Hard Land.
Dmae talks with award-winning radio producer and author Sandy Tolan about his new literary nonfiction book CHILDREN OF THE STONE: The Power of Music in a Hard Land. Tolan talks about the genesis that began with the feature story he produced for NPR and about the five-year process of writing this indepth personal story of  Ramzi Hussein Aberedwan who was a child of the first Intifada. he then fell in love with music and studied to become an international musician and then founder of a music school, Al Kamandjati, on the West Bank. This book also stands as a history of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and in particular of Israel's 48-year occupation of Palestinian lands.

Sandy Tolan will be at Powell’s City of Books on Burnside on April 26th, Sunday at 7:30pm.   

(Airs 11am Tues 4/21 on KBOO 90.7FM and StagenStudio.com.)


More about the book:

CHILDREN OF THE STONE: The Power of Music in a Hard Land
is the incredible story of Ramzi Hussein Aburedwan, a child of Palestinian refugee camps who was caught by a photographer hurling a rock at Israeli soldiers in 1988 in the West Bank. The snapshot, which appeared around the world, showed a fragile 8-year-old with fear and anger in his eyes. The image came to symbolize the rage and frustration of the intifada. Ten years later, Ramzi laid down the stones when he discovered the viola—he was awed by the power of music to lift himself and others out of despair.      
      
Through dedication, natural talent and unbridled passion, Ramzi became a violist, ultimately receiving a scholarship to study at a conservatory in France. His life was utterly transformed by music, and he vowed to return home to help other Palestinian children. He is now the founder of several music schools in Palestinian towns and refugee camps and has realized his dream to give back the gift of music.
 
Tolan, who first met Ramzi in 1998, documents his miraculous journey: from a child confronting an occupying army, to a burgeoning musician, to a music teacher and school founder sharing music with so many Palestinian children. 

More about the author:

SANDY TOLAN
is the author of Me & Hank and The Lemon Tree. As cofounder of Homelands Productions, Tolan has produced dozens of radio documentaries for NPR and PRI. He has also written for more than forty magazines and newspapers. His work has won numerous awards, and he was a 1993 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and an I. F. Stone Fellow at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. He is an associate professor at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

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