Middle Eastern Music Ensemble

Hadra | Traditional Moroccan

Ahwak | Mohammed Abdel Wahab, lyrics: Hussein El-Sayed

I love you and I wish that if I were to forget you
I would forget my soul with you
And if it is lost, I will be sacrificed for you, if you forgot me 

I forget you and the pain you caused me
And I long for your torment again
And my shed tears when I remember you, so I will return to you 

To meet you, the world comes with me to you
And its wish is your wish
At that hour, love will grow easy as long as it is forbidden to me 

I dream of finding you thinking of me and I of you 
With my eyes meeting yours
And the words on your face while you try to hide them 

And I would nourish you, waking from my sleep to call you 
Sending my soul to wake you
You who has lit me, try my fire!

Ashira | Steven Schwartz
Mi Chamocha | Richard Silverman, arr. Ron K Cytron

I will sing to G-d for he is highly exalted

Who is like you Adonai? 
Who is like you among the gods that are worshipped? 
Who is like you, majestic in holiness 

Awesome in splendors, working wonders? 
Great new songs written in praise of him 
And joy on the shore of the sea

Bey a Glazele Maske | Abe Schwartz

Gana al-Hawa | Baligh Hamdi, lyrics: Mohammed Hamza

Passion came to us, it came
Passion threw us, it ensnared us 
And those dark eyelashes 
Tied us together in passion

Oh how passion threw us and made us sleep
And the one who entwined us will save us
This is my love who has busied my mind 
Oh father, oh father, who has busied my mind

Al-Hinna | Unknown, Lebanese from the 1970s

Middle Eastern Music Ensemble Personnel
Harold Hayes
Terri Lenzo
Joshua Lyphout
Mason Marquette
Hayden Mesnick
Elizabeth Mumford
Camden Sondergeld
Samantha Stack-Gonzalez
Michelle Teyvel
Gabe Wagner
Austin Young

Afro-Caribbean Ensemble

AS FAR AS YOUR SOUL WILL ALLOW

Shove your hands
Through the holes
In the space of the world
And touch the soul at the bottom.
Be as gentle as do-right daddy
Be as strong as good old mama love
And hold everything with the faith
Of a questioning child.

Shove your head through
The space in the wholes
Of you bet your sweet life
And when you get inside
Cock your eyes ace-deuce
And snatch a peek around.
Try not to stumble though
Cause nobody wants to
fall over himself.

Shove your heart
Through these sounds
In the space between your ears
But take care of your attention
For the flute will steal your breath
And the bass will mock the hip in your walk
The piano will circle chords around you
And the guitar will snag the ravels of your mind.

Shove your hands
Through the holes
In the congas beating
And grab those quick cracks
And funky thick thunks
Hanging rhythms deep down your guts
Farther than your head will allow

Shove your soul
Through the moments vibrating
Of the crisp sizzling cymbals
And try for as long as your soul will allow
Not to cry out surprised
When you crash into the spirit of Great God

--Philip M. Royster 2/15/74, commissioned by the John Betsch Society
 

Echoes of Ancient Sahara; New York | Darryl Yokley 2018/arr. Nick Kiekenapp
Performed with the Middle Eastern Ensemble

From Pictures at an African Exhibition. Each piece is paired with an original artwork by David Emmanuel Noel. The art can be found here:

https://www.darrylyokley.com/gallery

The composer offers these thoughts accompanying this piece:

“Here the music and art pay homage to all the lost civilizations whose stories have been lost in time. The echo is the ghostly presence of lost civilizations that have left no traces behind. One can only feel the weight of the thousands of years of history in this landscape.”

According to Yokley, the overall theme of the album is one of unity: “I wanted to create a work that shows how we as a human family have more in common than our differences would lead us to believe.”

Twa Tanbou; Haiti | Sydney Guillaume

Written in Haitian Creole, this piece tells the story of three drums having an argument on the way back from Guinea. Two of the drums compete with each other, proclaiming their virtues and trying to outshine each other. On Mardi Gras, the third drum began to play a zouk for people to dance, and giving in to the festivities, the other two drums join the party. The three drums come together to sing: “All drums that are dispersed, let’s put our shoulders together, to make life more beautiful.”

Mulatu; Ethiopia | Mulatu Astatke 1975/arr. Nick Kiekenapp

This piece was composed by the legendary creator of Ethio-jazz, the vibraphonist, keyboard player, and bandleader, Mulatu Astatke. After being the first African student enrolled at the jazz-oriented Berklee College of Music in Boston, Mulatu Astatke became the first to fuse western jazz with traditional Ethiopian melodies. Upon returning to Addis Ababa, he created Ethio-jazz, inspired by jazz icons such as Duke Ellington, but “filtered through [an] African rhythmic sensibility – sixes against fours and threes against twos in the music on a deep level.” The modality reveals Arabic influences, while we hear American sound influences in the use of the vibraphone and the wah-wah pedal, as well as funk’s idiomatic language. Latin rhythmic underpinnings add an additional layer of hybrid world influence to this genre.

St. James Infirmary; New Orleans | folk song/Irving Mills 1928/arr. Jacob McFarland

The “St. James Infirmary Blues,” like many American jazz standards, has a rich and complex history. The definitive early recording was made in 1928 by Louis Armstrong, and it is that recording that led to the extent of the circulation and popularity of the tune as a jazz standard. Yet, the tune had been included in a publication of American folk songs the year before. Further investigation reveals even earlier origins as an 19^th century English ballad, which took new lyrical turns after being transported to America. The compositional copyright belongs to Irving Mills, who published the song under the pseudonym Joe Primrose. The version we perform tonight is an arrangement of the recording by acclaimed musician Jon Batiste; a member of New Orleans jazz royalty, his work both stylistically and culturally grounds this folk tune in the American jazz repertory in which it first found its home nearly a century ago.

Darling Doria; New York | The John Betsch Society 1974/arr. Nick Kiekenapp

This tune is from the John Betsch Society’s only album, Earth Blossom. Recorded in 1974 on the Strata-East label, this spiritual jazz tune reflects the influences of John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders. Amid the avant-garde and dissonant sound walls we find a gentle, earthy lyricism. The album, which was recorded in one session and in one take, conveys both the Afrocentric and psychedelic influences on spiritual jazz.

Truth; Compton | Kamasi Washington, 2017/arr. Nick Kiekenapp

Kamasi Washington’s “Truth” is from Harmony of Difference, a six-part suite in which he explores the thematic material of diversity through the technique of counterpoint. “Truth” is the culmination of the previous movement’s musical materials through sultry, languid, colors and explorations of theme and balance. Washington defines counterpoint as “the art of balancing similarity and difference to create harmony between separate melodies.” The album is accompanied by visual elements which further philosophize on the capacity to bring wholeness to what first appears disparate. “Truth” is Washington’s opulent, maximalist, vision of hope and possibility, the capacity to imagine a new world.

Afro-Caribbean Ensemble Personnel
Dominic Carlozzi
Giovanni Castiglione
Karli Christ
Kevin Coolman
Madeline Depinet
Skylar Diehl
Will Edwards
C. Theodore Forde-Stiegler
Harold Hayes
Ian Keller
Nicholas Kiekenapp
Jacob McFarland
Clayton Rosati
Isaac Washington
Ian Weil