Artists
who's who and who's doing what?SIWAN
line up
- Amina Alaoui (voice)
- Barokksolistene (Barock Solists) (Bjarte Eike, violin, leader)
- Helge Norbakken (percussion)
- John Balke (keyboards, conductor)
- John Hassel (trumpet, electronics)
- Kheir Eddine M'Kachiche (violin)
- Pedram Khavar Zamini (zarb)
- country:Norway
- region:Andalusia
- style(s):Oriental Acoustic
- label:ECM Records
- type:Band, Composer/Songwriter
- instrumentation:instrumental, vocal
- artist submitted by:
Siwan
is a musical project initiated by Jon Balke with Amina Alaoui and Kheir Eddine M'Kachiche fronting an ensemble of 16 musicians, including Barokksolistene, a group of early music players, lead by Bjarte Eike. Siwan was commissioned by Cosmopolite, Oslo's legendary multicultural stage for its 15 year jubilee in September 2007. Siwan has been chosen "CD of the Week" by Australian Broadcasting corp., as well as selected CD in France on FIP in July. Special features on radio programs have been broadcast in Israel, USA, Germany a. o.
The performers
Amina Alaoui is a virituoso singer , originally schooled in the Gharnati tradition, but devoted to a personal development by research on the connections between Fado, Flamenco and the music of Al Andalus.
Jon Hassell is like a living contemporary legend, whose path from studies with Stockhausen to the vocal master Pandit Pran Nath to the sphere of New York minimalism led him to form what he called fourth world-a music without borders between classical and popular, sacred and sensual, which has filtered into nearly all areas of contemporary music.
Jon Balke has with his background as musician in world music and jazz moved on to composition work for theater and dance performances as well as major works for chamber groups and sinfoniettas. He is composing for and leading his own projects Magnetic North Orchestra, and Batagraf, as well as performing solo piano and in smaller groups.
Bjarte Eike is a young veteran of early music. From studies in Bergen and London, he quickly established himself as a leading violinist on Copenhagen's early music scene. He formed his own eminent ensemble , Barokksolistene in 2005 and has enjoyed a great success as artistic director and leader. He is artist in residence at Bergen Festspillene 2008, and at Nordwind in Berlin 2009.
Kheir Eddine MKachich is a virtuoso violinist based in the tradition of Arabo-Andalusian music he has developed his own voice in collaborations with Amina Alaoui, Barrio Chino and lately also with Cheb Khaled.
Helge Norbakken, percussion, has been a much demanded musician in groups of Mari Boine, Maria Joao, and numerous other international artists. He has been leading in developing a new soundscape of percussion based on influences from world music and jazz.
Andreas Arend, Theorboe and ArchLute Studied in Berlin and quickly developed as a flexible and virituoso player , performing in a range of leading groups in baroque and renaissance music.
The Baroque soloists is a fairly new constellation of veterans in the European early music scene. Under the leadership of Bjarte Eike, they are greeted with enthusiasm by audiences throughout Europe.
About the Poetry
Being a musicologist herself Amina Alaoui is devoted to discovering and exploring the vast poetic treasures of the Al Andalus period.
SIWAN is therefore the result of a long line of research ,also into the reverberations of this epoque in the writings of philosophers and religious thinkers elsewhere in Europe after the end of the Muslim era in 1492.
One will find a striking similarity in the writings of the Sufi poets and the catholic and Sephardic mystics. The term mystic is itself a reference to the audacity to formulate ideas about abstraction that were extremely controversial at the time. San Juan de la Cruz for instance speaks in Toda sciencia transcendiendo about a personal, pure experience of an understanding beyond understanding, a revelation beyond scientific knowledge. He is speaking the unspeakable. Hallajs Thulathyat touches upon the same, a state where the ego melts into a bigger abstract universe.
The relation between rational thought and religious faith is also the subject of deep investigation, in poetry as in philosophy, as in the thinking of Averroes. There are striking resemblances to later philosophy and contemporary poetry in surprisingly many of these poems, and as such, this material speaks of a period with a fresh creative climate that later was suppressed and its daring thinkers persecuted and eliminated.
Poems used in Siwan:
Ya Andalucin-Ibn Khafaja 1058-1139
A la Dina, Soneto -Lope de Vega. 1562-1635
Ondas do mar de Vigo -Martin Codax 13th century
Jadwa-Al Homaidi-Cordoba 11th century
No lloras al muerto-Ibn Hazm-Cordoba ,994-1063
Ya safwati-Al Mutamid Ibn Abbad 11th century
Ashiyyin raiqin-Al Rusafi de Valencia
Aun Bebiendo-Faridu din Attar 12th century sufi poet
Thulathyat-Al Hallaj 857-922
Toda sciencia transcendiendo-San Juan de La Cruz 15th
Translations from Arabic to Spanish or English is difficult, and much of the beauty in the poetic craft can get lost. In Siwan a lot of the music was composed to a Spanish translation and later re-shaped around the original Arabic version.
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