NEAR EAST JOURNEY

ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

CP-Quintet-1200x628Divine Art Records’ Metier label is soon releasing an album of instrumental music inspired by the near East titled Jaipur to Cairo (msv28589)

Works
Kevin Bishop: Jaunpuri
Reza Vali: Three Love Songs
Kevin Bishop: Afghan Suite No. 2
Reza Vali: Calligraphies
Sadie Harrison: The Oldest Song in the World
Gilad Cohen: Ten Variations
Mohamed Aly Farag: Rhapsody for piano and strings

The music in the Metier album is performed by five artist-members of the group Cuatro Puntos. The compositions in each of the album’s thirteen tracks comes from a personal creative interaction between Cuatro Puntos’ musicians and composers and  sounds from India, Egypt, Afghanistan, Syria, Armenia and Persia (Iran).

Kevin Bishop, Sadie Harrison, Gilad Cohen, and Mohamed Aly Farag, and Reza Vali are the various composers, and Aaron Packard, violin; Annie Trepanier, violin; Steve Larson, viola; Allan Ballinger, cello; Andrew O’Connor, bass; Charles Huang, oboe, and pianist Mohamed Shams play intermittently throughout the album comfortably embracing a musical language typical of each composer, eliciting all the while fascinating sounds from their  instruments

The oldest known written piece of music, found in Syria and dated to 1400 BCE,  is arranged by Sadie Harrison for two violas with felicitous results, as a perfect  example of respectful reinterpretation that avoids academic reverence.

The playing  throughout is honest to a fault, technically assured, even dazzling at times and it is all done with western instruments played by musicians so sophisticated that one would think they were natives of India, Egypt, Afghanistan, Ancient Syria, Armenia and Iran, trained in music far different from most European trends.

The engineering of Justin Kurtz is flawless, and the accompanying booklet thoroughly informative, delivering another excellent Metier release, a production of Kevin Bishop.

Rafael de Acha     http://www.RafaelMusicNotes.com

Published by ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Rafael de Acha has enjoyed a distinguished career in the arts as a performer, stage director, producer, and educator. He was born and grew up in Cuba. At the age of 17 he moved to the United States to study Drama at the University of Minnesota, and later Languages at L.A. City College, Music at the Juilliard School of Music, at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, and at the New England Conservatory of Music, from which he received the Master's degree. He has taught courses on the History of Music at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and at Florida International University, and contributed writings and reviews to Seen and Heard International (www.seenandheard-international.com ) and to this blog. He co-founded the award-winning New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida, where he produced and staged twenty seasons of classical and contemporary theater, including fifty world premieres of plays that went on to have international and national productions on and off Broadway, including Ana in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz (Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2002 and Tony Nomination 2003.) In 2006 he was presented with a citation from The Dade County Cultural Affairs Council for “trailblazing contributions to the arts in South Florida.”