This guest blog post is the last of a four-part series written by Open Hands partner and music producer, Brian Unger. Read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 or learn more about the 2010 Syrian Music Exchange.
My last session for the day was Maias Alyamani and his quintet MAqam. The players are Maias Alyamani and Maria Arnaout on violin, Osama Tesinni playing cello, Basem Aljaber on double bass and Georg Oro playing percussion.
As one might imagine from the instrumentation, this session would undoubtedly lend itself to some comparisons to western classical music. In fact, Maias is known for his East meets West philosophy in adapting traditional pieces for modern interpretation and audiences. Again I would be somewhat limited in my abilities to capture this group the way I would normally like to, but I made the best of the situation. The Rhode stereo mike would capture the overall left right perspective and percussion while emphasizing the two violins up front. The double bass and cello would get individual close mikes giving me good control there.
Strains of gypsy melodies marked the first composition entitled “Seawaves”. These break into an allegro section of very dramatic Beethoven-esque pulsed strings. The second piece entitled Longa Nahawand, is another gypsy melody laced example of this genre. Here the word Nahawand refers to another of the previously discussed Arabic Maqamat (scales).
So ends day one of recordings in Damascus, Syria.
To hear the music produced during the exchange, please visit our YouTube channel.