Arab Music Ensemble
Featuring diverse programs of classic and contemporary music and dance, the Arab Music Ensemble will give three main contrasting shows during the concert season. While focusing on the Eastern Mediterranean, the programs will also feature selections from historically interconnected cultures of the larger region.
The instrumental and vocal repertoire will include a variety of composed and improvisational genres that stem from the Middle Ages to the present. Also on the programs will be examples from among the oldest continuously performed art-music genres in the world and the most popular songs in the region.
Critically acclaimed guest artists will join the students in the ensemble, bringing their professional skill and virtuosity to the performances and to the educational experience. Colorfully costumed dancers will also join the ensemble to put a variety of selections into graceful motion.
Cal Poly Arab Music Ensemble Fall Concert
Saturday, Nov. 16, 2019
7:30 p.m., Spanos Theatre
The Cal Poly Arab Music Ensemble and guest artists will perform a program of music and dance from the Eastern Mediterranean and larger region.
The Arab Music Ensemble is a multi-instrumental orchestra and choir with vocal and instrumental soloists. Its membership represents a range of majors on campus and professions off campus.
Critically acclaimed guest artists will join the ensemble: Fathi Aljarrah on kamanja (Arabic violin), and Faisal Zedan on riqq (tambourine), daff (frame drum), and darabukka (goblet drum). Both musicians were raised in Syria performing the types of music on the program, and are currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
San Luis Obispo dance director Jenna Mitchell will lead the dance troupe in complementary choreographies that dialogue with the music in selected famed pieces. Cal Poly Music Professor Ken Habib, a composer, performer, and ethnomusicologist, will direct the show.
The concert features some of the most celebrated repertoire of the region by famous composers, performers and poets including Abdel-Halim Hafez, Morsi Gamil Aziz, Mounir Mourad, and Sayyid Darwish of Egypt; Fairuz, Philemon Wehbe, and the Rahbani Brothers of Lebanon; and the legendary Ottoman-era Armenian composer, Tatyos Efendi.
The program will include contemporary works and traditional genres, such as the muwashshah, one of the oldest continuously performed art-music genres in the world. “The featured muwashshah is in a metric mode of 24 beats per measure and is an excellent example of the rhythmic sophistication that characterizes long metric modes, as will be seen in multiple pieces on this program,” Habib said.
Works from the shared music traditions of the Ottoman era will be performed which include the short introductory dulab; the samai with its 10-beat metric mode; the bashraf, which in this case has a 32-beat metric mode; and the 9-beat karshilima that is popular in Turkish and related music and dance.
Two traditional Sephardic songs with Ladino lyrics will be performed that tie historically to the Southern Iberian Peninsula and the larger Mediterranean Basin. In contrasting melodic modes, one song will be sung by a soloist and the other song by a choir.
Tickets ($14 general, $9 students)
Cal Poly Arab Music Ensemble Winter Concert
Saturday, March 14, 2020
7:30 p.m., Spanos Theatre
Tickets ($14 general, $9 students)
Cal Poly Arab Music Ensemble Spring Concert
Saturday, May 30, 2020
8 p.m., Spanos Theatre
Tickets ($14 general, $9 students)