Marouan Benabdallah, piano

hello i'm susan vita chief of the music division at the library of congress we are happy to present this recorded recital of the moroccan marijuana ben abdullah performing a beautiful program of composers from north africa and the middle east this concert video is presented with the embassy of morocco in washington dc we would like to thank the embassy for this exciting partnership and collaboration and the opportunity to present the music from this region enjoy the concert ladies and gentlemen good morning or good afternoon or good evening it gives me tremendous pleasure to record and perform this this concert for you seven years ago i started i embarked upon a very exciting journey called arabesque music project researching identifying and performing bringing to the world-class audience arab composers arab classical composers so far i have discovered a little more than 100 composers from different countries and tonight i'm going to play just a few of them let's say this is the first program and i hope there will be many others and i take this opportunity to thank the library of congress for giving me this opportunity to present this program let's start with diazo carry he was born in 1938 in aleppo at that time it was a beautiful and flourishing city in the recent in recent years we've heard quite a lot about this same city unfortunately it was a theater of blood bath and whatever atrocities you can name diazo kerry started playing the harp the violin and at the age of 13 he moved to paris to study at the conservatoire he's among his teachers he had olivier mission and many others and then he himself taught at the sorbonne at the conservatoire and he died in paris in 2010. he composed many pieces for piano for chamber music and he he managed somehow to bring a very particular flavor from from the middle east not i mean bringing beautiful melodies uh beautiful rhythms that that makes it so oriental so typical of that region but in the same way in the same time he brings european harmonies as well as you will hear through this piece this first piece entitled la nidodestan the night of destiny according to the quran this is the most sacred night of the holy month of ramadan the sky opens and angels come down to protect us till morning so somehow you can feel the narrative of this of this special night through the piece um there is a middle section called taksim um this is like i would say cadenza where the performer can um freely improvise and there is a moment when the music stops i think although i haven't checked with the composer unfortunately um uh i think that's when the the sky opens and it's followed by a tormented section and then comes enlightenment with beautiful harmonies almost like ravel's harmonies so i think it is it's one of the most beautiful pieces written for piano and i hope you'll enjoy it [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Applause] [Music] usually in music we start at a quite early age let's say four five six nine ten is already a little late but salim dada from algeria discovered his talent for music at the age of 18. he was already engaged in medical studies and he actually finished his studies and it's only after that that he fully turned towards music he studied at the conservatoire in algiers then torino then france and today he lives in algeria he composes all kinds of music for films for symphony orchestras and also some pieces for piano let's have a look at the score of five algerian miniatures he composed as you can see on the first page there are always some information useful information let's start with the muhammad rasim in the memory of muhammad rasim muhammad rasim was the founder of the algerian school of miniature paintings so these five miniatures represent five different pictures of algeria it starts from the north in the georgia mountain range and it ends in the south in the hoggar mountains his first piece oh the georgia i would translate it as dawn in georgia is inspired by a local singing style called ashwick these songs could be a festive mood but are most of the time sad dramatic women but also lately men for the sake of gender equality of course sing it usually a cappella without accompaniment and it's a very unique technique of singing this thing until the end of the breathe you see so the these are very long phrases and it starts with the unisono so left hand and right hand are playing the same notes and then he brings in the second time very interesting european harmonies that make it very exciting the second piece is dance zaidan zaiden dance zeidan is a mode is a melodic mode a local algerian melodic mode and well if i can roughly um convert it into european music i would say that's a minor scale and he also uses moell which is the major scale i mean of course this scale system is much more complex but uh but i want you to just to understand there is a theme that comes in minor and then there is a theme that comes in major and at the end of the piece he brings the two scales together in parallel it gives a little um dissonance but for the sake of of blending these two uh scales these two modes why not [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] wow [Music] in 1967 the world welcomed zad multaka from lebanon he was born in wadi shahroor a city very close to beirut he was born into an artistic family his parents were important figures of the arab theatric scene they translated all the masterpieces into arab language so they could be performed in arabic that multaka therefore was quite open-minded young man and today he's not only a composer he's also a painter he was the artistic director of the commissioner of the lebanese pavilion at the venice biennale in 2017. he started music in beirut at the conservatoire and then moved to paris at the age of 18. he studied at the conservatoire with pierre sancho and he was quite well engaged in the pianistic career he recorded several cds but at some point he decided to stop everything and dedicate his musician life to composing and questioning how oriental and western musical traditions can meet it's not that obvious it's not that easy because in oriental music you have these typical quarter tones that you cannot play on a on a piano let's say but somehow he managed um to to mix the two traditions he composed a fascinating cycle called zarani and it's a set of moshas mushahs are poems from the 9th 10th century andalusia these poems are usually about three things um praise of the prophet hazal is love song and uh wine song how surprising um so he he he used these um some very famous songs melodies and put them into piano singer uh rude and percussion i'm going to play two of the pieces for solo piano where he uses um in the first uh the first one is a set of variations he uses a very famous melody and you will see he brings oriental melody oriental rhythmic tradition and blends it with 20th century composing technique and the result i think is just amazing enjoy so so so [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] go [Music] so [Music] [Music] our next composer is mohammed fair from egypt and the united arab emirates he was born in new york city in 85 and he studied at the curtis institute and today he lives in new york he lives and thrives in new york he's a very prolific composer he wrote for symphony orchestras oratorio chamber music and for piano as well deutsche gramophone released an album with his music called odanesque about six years ago he composed this space in the memory of his teacher george lighty who was jewish and the title of this piece is which is a jewish prayer it is first i mean the the piece itself is inspired by a poem by yahuda amihai but it's also a prayer part of the funeral service they sing it to evoke the memory of the deceased and accompany the elevation of the soul so the first movement starts with with the lower register some very dramatic chords like groans and then you have this piercing uh sound uh of the hazan the cantor in the synagogue the second piece is more lyrical with very interesting beautiful harmonies and the third movement is um we could call it a perpetu mobile a perpetual movement he uses a famous song um called havana gila and there are some very interesting effects bringing to mind the the siren in israel when the rockets is approaching and uh well it's a it's a piece with great momentum i hope you will enjoy it [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] is one of the major figures in morocco he was born in 1972 into a musical family his father was the director of the arab music conservatoire in mechnas so that's where nabil started his musical training then he moved to the western musical western music conservatoire and then he studied at the tchaikovsky conservatoire in kiev then strasbourg and today he's back to morocco he composed all kinds of music for orchestra you can find his moroccan symphony actually on youtube and he composed several pieces this one i'm going to play is the first nocturne and it is his very first piece actually it goes back to the late 80s it was inspired by chopin it is a rather simple piece but so genuine so sincere i thought it would be worth discovering it [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] doesn't need introduction he traveled all over the world he went to sri lanka he went to saigon he went to south america but his most preferred place was north africa he went to egypt many times and to algeria he died in algiers and these trips inspired him to compose some very unique music he composed his fifth concerto called the egyptian concerto and he composed this piece called africa ahaba's project is not only about arab composers it's also also about western composers inspired by arab culture there are only a few of them but i think it's worth the detour there is bartok shimanovsky holst but and sansans is one of the key orientalist figures from the 19th century africa is a fantasy composed for piano and orchestra it's a piano concerto and about 13 years ago i decided to make an arrangement of it because it's so rarely performed i said why why keep it in the cupboard let's let's have it more performed on stage do [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] my you

Channel: Library of Congress

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Keywords: Library of Congress

Id: Ayl7wKA_3ow

Length: 62min 11sec (3731 seconds)

Published: Thu May 27 2021