His song Watani Ana (I Am My Homeland) was inspired by the killing of children in the Syrian city of Dara’a. On January 31, he became the first Arab-American composer to premier work at Carnegie Hall.

Jandali, who has performed in concert halls throughout the world, is no ordinary musician. In the film, which features Jandali’s music plus archival video and photos from Syria, Jandali looks at his Syrian identity from an American perspective, against the backdrop of the current Syrian dictatorship, civil war and the Arab Spring. Notes for My Homeland tells the story of Syrian-American composer and pianist Malek Jandali, an American citizen who blends traditional Arab music with Western harmonies. This month, the Newest Americans project premiered Notes for My Homeland, the first in a series of short documentary films, which is showing on National Geographic’s Proof website. As director of the center, he has recently embarked on a multiyear project called “Newest Americans: Stories From the Global City,” a multimedia and multidisciplinary collaboration among journalists, artists, research faculty and students that is documenting unique stories from Rutgers-Newark, which has been hailed, for nearly two decades, the most diverse college campus in the nation.

He fused the two by starting the Center on Migration and the Global City in 2009. He also has an abiding passion for political issues like immigration. An associate professor of arts, culture and media at Rutgers University-Newark, his background is in theater and performance studies. Tim Raphael director, producer, dramaturge, and adapter, is creative and collaborative by nature. Tim Raphael records the stories of Rutgers-Newark's diverse student population Tim Raphael's film project takes a close look at the true definition of American identity through the cultural narratives of Rutgers-Newark students.

Newest americans center for global city