Konzerthaus Dortmund in Zusammenarbeit mit Aga Khan Music Initiative präsentieren

KAMMERKONZERT Maqam Jetzt und Einst

with Master Musicians of the Aga Khan Music Initiative

Sirojiddin Juraev dutar and tanbur Basel Rajoub saxophone and duclar Feras Charestan qanun

Program

Ufar: Improvisation on the tanbur Sirojiddin Juraev Sirojiddin Juraev, tanbur

Ohangi Sharqi Developed by Sirojiddin Juraev Sirojiddin Juraev, dutar from a melody by Basel Rajoub, dutar Muhammadjon Muminov Feras Charestan, qanun

Gypsy Home Basel Rajoub Basel Rajoub, soprano saxophone Feras Charestan, qanun

Bagulshan Muhammad Muminov Sirojiddin Juraev, dutar arranged by the performers Feras Charestan, qanun

Improvisation on the duclar in maqam Sikah Basel Rajoub Basel Rajoub, duclar

Asia Basel Rajoub Basel Rajoub, soprano saxophone Feras Charestan, qanun Sirojiddin Juraev, dutar

Samai Feras Charestan Feras Charestan, qanun

Mashq-i dutar Sirojiddin Juraev Sirojiddin Juraev, dutar

Wafaa Basel Rajoub Basel Rajoub, duclar Feras Charestan, qanun

Jul Dance Feras Charestan Basel Rajoub, soprano saxophone Feras Charestan, qanun Sirojiddin Juraev, dutar

Tashkent Basel Rajoub Basel Rajoub, soprano saxophone Feras Charestan, qanun Sirojiddin Juraev, tanbur, dutar KAMMERKONZERT Maqam Jetzt und Einst

This evening’s concert features a trio of master musicians from Syria and Tajikistan who perform their own compositions and arrangements rooted in and inspired by maqam. Maqam is a vast domain of sophisticated art song and instrumental music that has evolved in different regional “dialects” over at least a millennium in the Eastern Mediterranean, Iraq, Iran, Azerbaijan, North Africa, and Central Asia. These geographically diverse but musically kindred traditions are organized in canonical repertories often referred to as “classical” music. The roots of maqam are in an old cultivated tradition of music theory, mathematics, and philosophy that developed under the patronage of Muslim rulers in great centers of culture and commerce such as Baghdad, Damascus, Samarkand, Herat, and Bukhara. Maqam is typically performed by small ensembles—duos, trios, quartets, quintets—whose members achieve their musical mastery through the oral transmission of musical styles and repertories from master to disciple.

Musicians consider the highest level of mastery in the domain of maqam to be the ability to compose and improvise music that references traditional forms of melody and rhythm while simultaneously exploring new realms of artistic creativity. Basel Rajoub, Feras Charestan, and Sirojiddin Juraev all belong to this elite group of masters.

Sirojiddin Juraev, born and raised near the ancient city of Khujand, in Northern Tajikistan, is a master performer of the Tajik and Uzbek “dialect” of maqam. His mastery is expressed both through his virtuosic arrangement of older melodies and through his own original compositions. Known in Tajikistan as an accomplished performer on the plucked tanbur, the instrument par excellence of maqam, and on the sato – essentially a tanbur played with a bow, Juraev comes into his own as a composer and arranger on the dutar, the two-stringed long-necked lute for which he has created a series of virtuosic solo works. Several of these works are on display this evening. Stylistically, Juraev’s compositions could be described as neotraditional; that is, they are informed and inspired by tradition while breaking loose from canonical forms and performance techniques. Juraev’s music draws both on his fertile artistic imagination and spectacular technique. His analogues in Western classical music are virtuoso performer- composer-improvisers such as Liszt, Mendelssohn, and Anton Rubinstein. But unlike these musical titans, whose most demanding works have been mastered by many other musicians and are widely performed today, Sirojiddin Juraev, at least for now, is the sole performer of his own compositions and arrangements for dutar. The simple reason is that no other dutar player – of which there are many – has the technical ability to perform these works.

Like many virtuosos, Sirojiddin Juraev enjoys not only playing solo works, but collaborating with other musicians. In this evening’s concert, he collaborates with qanun player Feras Charestan and saxophone and duclar player Basel Rajoub to perform a kind of improvised chamber music (the duclar is a hybrid instrument created by crossing the Armenian duduk with the clarinet). Rajoub and Charestan both belong to a rising generation of cosmopolitan Arab musicians who have merged the timbres and tonalities of local instruments and musical styles with jazz, European classical music, and contemporary compositional and improvisatory practices. Conservatory-trained in Damascus, Rajoub and Charestan are at once consummate performers, skilled improvisers, and highly original composers. To create this evening’s program, they taught a selection of their pieces to Sirojiddin Juraev, who adapted them to the Uzbek-Tajik dutar and tanbur. Likewise, Juraev taught several of his own pieces to Rajoub and Charestan. In bringing these musicians together, the Aga Khan Music Initiative reanimates old cultural connections that reach back to the era known as the Golden Age of Islam while also pointing to a path forward for one of the world’s great traditions of classical music.

Artists

Master Musicians of the Aga Khan Music Initiative is a collective of artists who create new music inspired by their own deep roots in the cultural heritage of the Middle East and Mediterranean Basin, South Asia, Central Asia, and China. These masters are the Aga Khan Music Initiative’s leading artistic collaborators—venerated performers and composer-arrangers who appear on the world’s most prestigious stages while also serving as teachers, mentors and curators who enrich the Music Initiative’s interregional network of education programmes. Linking countries and continents, and present and past through explorations of diverse forms of classical, folk, jazz, and contemporary concert music, the ensemble contributes strongly to the Music Initiative’s mission to invigorate cultural and intellectual pluralism in the nations it serves.

Sirojiddin Juraev is a master performer on long-necked lutes from Central Asia. Born and raised near the ancient city of Khujand, in northern Tajikistan, Sirojiddin learned to play the two-stringed dutar as a child and later studied with the great Uzbek master Turgun Alimatov. As a student at the Dushanbe Academy of Maqom, created by the Aga Khan Music Initiative in 2003, Sirojiddin also studied tanbur and sato (bowed tanbur) with ustad Abduvali Abdurashidov. Sirojiddin is active as a composer and arranger, and has created a body of new virtuoso works for dutar, tanbur, and sato. He performs both as a soloist and as a member of several ensembles, including Soriana Project, the Master Musicians of the Aga Khan Music Initiative, the Academy of Maqom, and Tajikistan’s State Shashmaqom Ensemble.

Basel Rajoub is a saxophonist and composer-improviser whose inspirations include traditional Middle Eastern rhythms and melodies as well as jazz. Born in Aleppo, Syria, he graduated from the Damascus High Institute of Music and creates new music that brings together musicians from the Middle East, North Africa, Asia, and Europe. A winner of Radio Monte Carlo’s Moyen-Orient Music Award, Basel Rajoub divides his time between performing, teaching, composing, and recording. Basel performs as a member of several ensembles, including the Master Musicians of the Aga Khan Music Initiative, and is the founding member of the Soriana Project.

Feras Charestan is from the city of Al-Hasakeh, in the northeast of Syria, and studied qanun at the High Institute of Music in Damascus. He has performed as a qanun soloist with symphony orchestras and has been a member of popular bands as well as contemporary music ensembles, such as the Master Musicians of the Aga Khan Music Initiative, creating new music rooted in Middle Eastern traditions. Feras Charestan currently lives in Stockholm, Sweden.

About the Aga Khan Music Initiative The Aga Khan Music Initiative is an interregional music and arts education programme with worldwide performance, outreach, mentoring and artistic production activities. Launched to support talented musicians and music educators working to preserve, transmit and further develop their musical heritage in contemporary forms, the Music Initiative began its work in Central Asia, subsequently expanding its cultural development activities to include artistic communities and audiences in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. The Initiative promotes the revitalisation of cultural heritage both as a source of livelihood for musicians and as a means to strengthen pluralism in nations where it is challenged by social, political, and economic constraints.

Credits

This programme is presented in collaboration with the Aga Khan Music Initiative, a program of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture.

Aga Khan Music Initiative Director: Fairouz Nishanova Senior consultant: Theodore Levin Tour coordination: Nathalie De Groot Regional coordinator and tour manager: Kirill Kuzmin Technical director: Joseph Jabbour