Simon Shaheen & The Aswat Orchestra, featuring Ibrahim Azzam, Sonia M’barek, Khalil Abonula, Rima Khcheich
Town Hall, New York City.  Saturday, March 7, 2009 
Text and photos by Banning Eyre

Aswat means “voices,” and the celebrated “golden age” was that period from the 1920s-50s when the 20^th century’s most celebrated Arab voices—Umm Kulthum, Fairuz, and Wadi’ Al Safi, among others—collaborated with the era’s greatest Arab composers—the likes of Mohammad Abdel Wahab and Farid Al Atrash—to create music for the Egyptian cinema.  The films themselves are a mixed legacy, some enduring hits and a number of misses.  But the music on its own is a gift that keeps on giving.  This was a period of flourishing creativity that awakened the soul and rekindled the ambitions of Arab classical music after the relatively moribund period of the Ottoman Empire.  Key singers whose careers were launched in this time, especially Kulthum, Fairuz, and Al Safi, became icons in the Arab world and continue to loom large over today’s pantheon of Middle Eastern stars.  At New York’s Town Hall, in a concert presented by the World Music Institute, twelve musicians and four singers gathered under the direction of Simon Shaheen to evoke this era with stunning musicianship and heart-stopping vocal performances.  They were celebrating not just the genius of individual composers nor the grandeur of iconic singers, but rather the spirit of watershed cultural renaissance.   

Shaheen has long championed this era of musical history.  A virtuoso violinist and oud player, and a brilliant composer and educator, Shaheen was born to a Palestinian family in Galilee, and went on to conservatory study in Haifa before moving to the United States in 1980.  Among his first U.S. recordings was a tribute to Mohammad Abdel Wahhab and he has since been involved in many projects relating to this period.  The Aswat endeavor was included in the Kennedy Center’s 22-day Arabesque extravaganza, and the New York show came on the night after the group’s Kennedy Center performance.  Shaheen was, as always, a gracious, warm and deeply informative host, playing violin and at one point singing as he directed an exceptional ensemble that included his brother Najib on oud, and master nay and flute player Bassam Saba.  Two long sets each began with a luminous instrumental pieces by the Aswat Orchestra.  Then Shaheen would invite singers to the stage. 

The first set featured Khalil Abonula of Palestine, a protégé of the Wadi’ Al Safi, and Rima Khcheich, an educator and classical vocalist also from Lebanon.  Shaheen invited the audience to close their eyes and listen to the voice of Abonula, suggesting that those who had swooned to Al Safi back in the 60s would find themselves transported through time.  Many in that audience displayed this depth of knowledge, and as the tall, statuesque Abonula reprised two Al Safi classics, including the improvised vocal muwwal passages at the start of each piece, they responded audibly.  Approving moans, gestures and bursts of applause are a feature of performances designed to bring about tarab, or musical ecstasy.  Their presence at this concert was a testimony not only to the excellence of Shaheen’s ensemble and these four, amazing singers, but also to the listening powers of a well-informed audience.  

This is music of exquisitely stated passions, earthy and heartfelt, but expressed with formal precision and intense attention to detail.  Rima Khcheich, dressed arrestingly in black and red, embodied this duality.  Her vocal tone is a tad sunnier than that of Fairuz or Kulthum—she sang songs made famous by each of these divas—but her vivid articulation, vocal flourishes, and the emotion she invested in the delivery of each line resulted in a performance worthy of such august models.  When Khcheich sang a brief acapella piece, the audience was unrestrained in its vocal outbursts and applause. 

The second half of the program opened with music by Farid Al Atrash.  Najib Shaheen’s rhythmically playful oud solo earned a stirring response from the crowd, perhaps because it included quotes from the great Al Atrash, who was an explosive oud player himself.  Bassam Saba’s nay (flute) solo was also memorable, with fine grains of sand in his tone adding an ecstatic lift to an understated opening, and his virtuosic windup inspiring huge applause.  But the set belonged to singers Sonia M’barek of Tunisia and Ibrahim Azzam of Lebanon.  M’barek’s voice alone is exceptional, deeply burnished, warm and just a little smoky.  Beyond this she displayed character and masterful musicianship in taking on two songs, including one of Umm Kulthum’s most beloved recordings, “Ana Fin Intidharak.”  This, for me, marked the emotional crescendo of an extraordinary concert, as close to the experience of hearing the actual Umm Kulthum as most Americans are ever likely to come.  And of course, the hall thundered with acclaim when M’barek was through.

London-based Palestinian maestro Ibrahim Azzam came to the stage holding in his hand the very oud that was once played by the great Farid Al Atrash, onstage and in films.  Evoking Al Atrash’s resplendent career of the 30s and 40s, Azzam stood—oud on knee—and delivered two pieces from that period.  His voice projected deep calm and luster, as well as a certain playful charisma.  For the finale, he and M’barek came to the stage to perform a duo (actually a film dialogue) created by Mohammed Abdel Wahhab in 1938.  The title was “Ya Di n-Na’im” or “Living in Happiness,” and that was how this singular performance left Town Hall feeling on Saturday night.  The journey from popular film entertainment in that genre’s early years to the transcendent, near-spiritual joy of tarab—a centuries-old musical tradition—is one that is possible only within this remarkable realm of Arab classical music.  For those in the know, this concert was a chance to savor that time in all its glorious paradox in the hands of as fine an Arab music ensemble as one is likely to encounter in America.  For the uninitiated, it was an unforgettable, eye-and-ear-opening initiation. 

First published: www.afropop.org