REEM KELANI
Organisation: Rich Mix
Time: 04 June 2011 8:00pm -
Place: Rich Mix, 35 - 47 Bethnal Green Road, London E1
Rich Mix Presents:
REEM KELANI
Reem Kelani is arguably the most outstanding and innovative Arabic singer of her generation. With her fine cross-cultural band she explores a profoundly personal musical territory, creating an intense & emotional soundscape that starts somewhere between propulsive contemporary jazz & spine-tingling Arabic maqaams, and continues with power, passion & poetry.
A consummate live performer, Reem enlightens as well as entertains her audiences, drawing on years of research and many inspired creative collaborations with outstanding and very different musicians, from the wonderful Turkish collective Kardes Turkuler and virtuoso clarinettist Selim Sesler to fado singer Liana and the fine Gaelic vocalist Catriona Watt.
Not only was Reem present in Tahrir Square throughout the revolution (see her Cairo blog at: http://reemkelani.com/blog.asp), her work for her second album on the great Egyptian composer Sayyid Darwish (1892 – 1923) could not have been more topical. Darwish’s songs, which are in the psyche of every Arab, were a core element of the music of the revolution. Long suppressed, along with a whole body of cultural work by the former Egyptian regime, the protesters sought to re-claim these songs for the people. Thus, songs which Darwish had crafted for the Egyptian revolt of 1919 against the British Protectorate, became the cry of the Egyptian people against the Mubarak regime in 2011. And for those who may have heard some of Reem’s renditions of Sayyid Darwish in previous concerts, Reem’s performance will encompass new perspectives as well as the fruits of her recent research in Egypt.
For this performance she will feature new arrangements of songs from her acclaimed Palestinian album Sprinting Gazelle: Palestinian Songs from the Motherland & Diaspora and will also showcase some amazing new music from legendary Egyptian composer Sayyid Darwish featured on her upcoming double CD release, and freshly inspired by this year’s revolutionary events in Cairo.
Saturday 4 June 2011 | 20:00
Rich Mix
Bethnal Green Road
London
E1 6LA
TICKETS: £8 adv/£11 door | BOOK ONLINE or call 020 7613 7498