Music that tells stories and has a long story itself:
Currents of diverse musical cultures that united in various historical and geographical places and were separated again,
driven by the tide of history.
Ensemble Sarband's musical Odyssey around the Mediterranean and across eight centuries of music history is meant neither to prove the mutual influence nor the insurmountable differences:
it paints a musical picture of the everyday life that Jews shared with Christians and Muslims
in Al-Andalus, the Ottoman Empire and the European Diaspora.
Sephardic songs are set beside Muslim Sufi hymns composed by a Christian convert;
the Cantigas de Santa Maria, collected by King Alonso el Sabio in the 13th century, and catholic polyphony
from the royal Spanish nunnery of Las Huelgas de Burgos are performed together
with Ottoman-Turkish court music written by Jewish composers.
"Chanterai por mon Corage", a lady's anxious hope for the successful outcome of her lover's crusade,
stands for the hope that a coexistence or even togetherness of cultures and religions may be possible again
in the way this musical journey tells.
Miriam Andersén (Sweden): voice & gothic harp / Fadia el-Hage (Lebanon): voice /
Mustafa Dogan Dikmen (Turkey): voice & percussion
/ Celaleddin Biçer (Turkey): ney & kanun / Ahmet Kadri Rizeli (Turkey): kemençe / Bahadir Sener (Turkey): kanun
/ Vladimir Ivanoff (Bulgaria / Germany): percussion, ud, musical director
„On instruments hardly known in the West, witnesses of a 800-year-old
and incredibly rich musical tradition
are performed with astonishing depth,
nuance and meditative calm …
Lebanese mezzo-soprano Fadia el-Hage’s wonderfully warm voice sings splendidly ornmented improvisations …
her colleague Dogan Dikmen praises Allah;
and Miriam Andersen’s clear soprano
tells about the fates of crusaders.“
Frank Heindl, Augsburger Allgemeine, 14.11.2008
„Sarband unfurl a panorama from
Al-Andalus via Algeria
to the Ottoman Empire.
A significant part of the cheers was directed
at the vocal soloists.
Exciting acoustic images are conjured,
in which the origins of
European tradition appear.
The audience returned home,
dazzlingly enriched with sensations, experiences and information.
It is very beneficial if Europe
is not the centre of the musical world
for once.”
Monika Lanzendörfer, Schwetzinger Zeitung (Germany), 03.05.2010
