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| Simon
Shaheen & Qantara |
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Shaheen
is a recognized master of the Arab music world. He is
a Palestinian-American musician who studied at the Academy
of Music in Jerusalem and completed his graduate studies
in performance at Manhattan School of Music in New York,
and later in musicology and music education at Columbia
University. Since then he has performed as a soloist
and with the music ensemble he formed, the Near Eastern
Music Ensemble in 1982. In 1992, Shaheen formed Alcantra
Fusion Ensemble which includes some of the leading World
Music performers. Shaheen is a musical scholar, a composer
and a virtuoso on both oud and violin. He also composes
jazz and scores for film and theater. Waving
Sands is from his recent innovative album Blue
Flame, that marries a healthy dose of jazz to the
exotic rythms of world beat and flavors of Simon's native
Arabian Heartland.
(More
traditional music of Simon)
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| Youssef
Boutros |
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Youssef
Boutros is an adorer of the violin who considers himself
very lucky to have lived his youth in Egypt during the
era of Abdel Wahab, Om Kolthoum and Abdel Halim Hafez.
His
love to music in general and specifically to the violin
has availed a great opportunity for him to join the
number 1 band at the time that played with almost all
the renowned singers: Abdel Halim Hafez, Riad El Sonbati,
Laila Mourad and many others.
After living in the United States for over 36 years,
during which time he formed a band and continued to
play Arabic music in several places, he was always approached
by Americans commending him on his music and asking
if he had a CD. This is when the idea of this CD, Nostalgic
Egyptian, came to his mind in which he plays the
words on the violin to a selection of 8 different Egyptian
songs and one Lebanese.
These two tracks are from his first CD Nostalgic
Egyptian which you can review or purchase here. |
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| Said
Mrad |
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Said
Mrad's career in the music industry dates back to 1989
when he first started as a DJ, playing music in hit
nightclubs all around Lebanon.Through the years, Said
acquired an admirable sense for music. Along with his
producer Jean Mouawad, he kickstarted his new profession
in the realm of music by remixing the works of famous
Arabic artists like Oum Kalthoum, Mohammad
Abdel Wahhab,
and many others.
In these two tracks Mrad remixes two master pieces of
Baligh Hamdi (One Thousand and One Nights) and Mohammad
Abdel Wahhab (Where do we begin). From his album Two
Thousand And One.
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| Hasan
Cihat Orter |
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| Hasan
Cihat Orter is a turkish guitarist who gained wide fame
in the last few years for his remixes of traditional
Turkish music, particularly instrumental dance music.
He is one of the new generation of musicians who are
concerned with liberating turkish
music. Remixing, which literally means to say the same
thing in another form, is produced by changing the form
of a musical piece through a process that can be called
"restructuring."
The Longa is a form of turkish music which is also well
known in the Arab countries of the Middle East. In the
first piece Hasan
brilliantly
rearranges a famous tune in jaz form. Inspiration is
from his latest album Reformation. |
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