Waltham – REMIX: New Sounds from Arab Lands, which mixes the spontaneity and control rooted in a 1,000-year-old tradition of improvisation, will perform as part of the MusicUnitesUS World Music Series Thursday, Feb. 28. The concert will be held at 8 p.m. in the Slosberg Recital Hall at Brandeis University and will be preceded by a talk, given by residency curator, Theodore Levin, at 7 p.m. The concert is the final event in REMIX's three-day residency.
“This music is as alive and in the moment as you'sl ever hear, but it's also fraught with history,” Levin says. “Moreover, it could only have been created by artists whose own musical journeys have zigzagged back and forth between the Middle East and the West in unique and remarkable ways.”
This adventurous program brings together eminent performer-composer-improvisers from Syria and Tunisia who create new music inspired by the rich cultural heritage of the Arab lands. These accomplished artists exemplify the talent, achievement, and breadth of a rising generation of cosmopolitan Arab musicians who combine jazz, classical music, and the microtonal subtleties and myriad melodic modes of Arabic music.
The ensemble is led by genre-crossing clarinetist Kinan Azmeh, and includes Syrian saxophonist, Basel Rajoub, and violinist, Jasser Haj Youssef, from Tunisia. Joining them are Khaled Yassine, co-founder of Lebanese fusion band Fu Jan Shai and Feras Shahrestane on quanun. The New Sounds project was developed in collaboration with the Aga Khan Music Initiative, a program of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture. The Music Initiative supports artists and artistic communities in the Middle East and North Africa, Central Asia, and South Asia that seek to reassemble and further develop diverse expressions of a shared musical heritage in contemporary forms.
Tickets for the World Music Concert are $20 for the general public, $15 for the Brandeis community, and $5 for students. Tickets can be purchased online and in person at the Shapiro Campus Center. For more information on tickets, visit www.brandeis.edu/tickets.
