May 20, 2013 joined by three excellent collaborators, Mohammad Reza Shajarian gives what amounts to a brief master class in the art of singing. In the course of this love song, titled “Az Eshgh,” the Iranian icon unleashes torrents of swooping, soaring, goosebump-inducing sound that’s still perfectly controlled at age 73.
Text by Anastasia Tsioulcas
Date: Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Time: 8:00pm
Venue: Florence Gould Hall (of the French Institute Alliance Française, 55 E 59th St, NY, NY 10022)
Tickets: Ticketmaster.com
Genre: Arabic Classical music
The New York Arabic Orchestra is the home of contemporary and classical Arabic music in America. The orchestra, based in the New York metropolitan area, is an Arabic music institution of performance and education co-founded in 2007 by Bassam Saba, a world renowned multi-instrumentalist virtuoso, conductor and teacher of Arabic music; and April Centrone, the orchestra’s lead percussionist. The orchestra brings together a culturally diverse group of musicians around a common passion: Arabic Music.
The 35-piece New York Arabic Orchestra presents contemporary instrumental compositions by Bassam Saba, along with selections of Arabic vocal and instrumental music of Lebanon, Syria and Egypt. The NYAO is comprised of the oud (Arabic lute), nay (Arabic reed flute), qanun (Arabic zither), Arabic percussion, strings, woodwinds, lead vocalists and chorus. Known throughout the U.S. and abroad as one of Arabic music’s finest conductors, Bassam Saba has led the NYAO to prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center and has developed an authentic sound that is regarded around the world.
Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi
No green, no blue, no red, no black…………but all colors: get together and focus on one thing: your freedom!………….Keep Zabane Atesh all the time with you when you’re on the streets!!! Take your tar, dombak, guitar, sax – anything that can make the sound of freedom – with you. No gun can kill you when you’re flying on and with the sound of freedom. Ostad Mohammad-Reza Shajarian, please join the people on the streets and be the power of music!
