Evento

Tarab Edition II: Alwan Ensemble, Abdulrahman AlAkhfash and Friends

Alwan for the Arts presents a six hour immersion into Tarab, featuring classical repertoires of Cairo, Aleppo, Baghdad and Yemen, plus contemporary compositions that explore new manifestations of this centuries old phenemenon. Solo artists and ensembles performing:

Abdulrahman AlAkhfash, with percussionist Ahmad Al Roudani
Amir ElSaffar
Layth Sidiq
Firas Zreik Trio (Firas Zreik l Han Beyli l Tariq Rantissi)
The Alwan Arab Music Ensemble

About the Artists:

Abdulrahman Al Akhfash, an oud player and vocalist, hails from a line of musicians steeped in the Yemeni musical tradition, which derives from poetic language and is extremely rich in genres, repertoires and configurations as well as modalities of performance and instruments. Over the past 20 years, AlAkfash has contributed significantly to the natural development and enrichment of the Sanani repertoire. His mix of traditional Yemeni music recordings and his own compositions have made him popular across Yemen and have built a bridge between different cultures. His performance style embodies the Yemeni tradition consisting of a solo singer with 'oud accompaniment and percussions highlighting rhythms in subtly expressive and poetic ways.

Amir ElSaffar is an Iraqi-American trumpeter, santur player, vocalist, and composer. Amir has mastered disparate musical styles and a singular approach to combining aspects of Middle Eastern music with American jazz, extending the boundaries of each tradition. A skilled jazz trumpeter with a classical background, Amir has created new techniques to play microtones and ornaments that are idiomatic to Arabic music but not typically heard on trumpet. He is an acknowledged performer of the classical Iraqi maqam tradition, and performs actively in the US, Europe and the Middle East as a vocalist and santur player. As a composer, ElSaffar has used the microtones found in maqam music to create a unique approach to harmony and melody, establishing an important voice in an age of cross-cultural music making.

Iraqi-born Layth Sidiq is a soloist, chamber musician and recording artist, and a leading middle-eastern violinist on the world stage. He has performed both as a leader and as a sideman in venues such as the Boston Symphony Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Concertgebouw Hall, the Royal Albert Hall and the Royal Festival Hall, as well as the Abu Dhabi festival, the Dominican Republic Jazz Festival and the Montreal Jazz Festival, where he premiered his original compositions with his sextet. Layth has also collaborated with acclaimed artists including Simon Shaheen, Jack Dejohnette, Jose Merce, Shankar Mahadevan, Javier Limón, Gary Burton and A.R. Rahman to name a few. Layth is based in Boston where he currently directs the Arab music ensemble at Tufts University as well as being a sough-after violinist and composer in the US and abroad. His first solo album Son of Tigris is set to be released later this spring. Entirely made up of original compositions, it brings together elements from Iraqi music and Jazz.

Kanun player and composer Firas Zreik presents "The Kanun Journey", a set of original instrumental compositions, on the Kanun (a Middle Eastern 78-strings lap zither), electric fretless bass and percussion, creating a unique sound. Firas Zreik iscurrently at the Berklee College of Music on a full scholarship, pursuing a dual degree in jazz composition and performance.His music brings together the classical Arabic music sound and a global mixture of flamenco and world jazz influences. In addition to his personal musical project, Firas has performed with many great artists from all over the world, including as Roger Waters, Shankar Mahadevan, Aynur Dogan and Simon Shaheen.

The Alwan Arab Music Ensemble delivers a joyful and transporting range of classical songs from the Arab World built around textures of rhythmic and improvisational intensity. The ensemble evokes the classical music traditions and ambiance of Cairo, Aleppo and Baghdad, three important Arab cities with great legacies in art and culture, each with a unique repertory with distinct characteristics, rules, and aesthetics: the dawr and qasida of Cairo; the Andalusian muwashshahat of Aleppo; and al-maqam al-Iraqi of Baghdad. Yet all adhere to the maqam and place great importance on poetry and the vocal melody sung by a soloist or a chorus, and usually accompanied by an ensemble of traditional instruments, including the oud, qanun, nay, violin, santur, riqq and tabla.
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Alwan for the Arts is supported, in part, by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council of the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.