… A moment of pleasure …
On the one side Orient, neither ethereal nor nostalgic. A bristling, vivacious shore today, fed by an ancestral tradition constantly reinvented.
The elegant and gifted Ahmad al Khatib, performer and composer, draws an embroidered music with ūd, punctuated by the complicity of Youssef Hbeisch’s percussion – riq, bendir, darboukas… A whole subtle world, age-old and contemporary, feverish, nervous, poetic, where this obstinacy of rhythm, these ornaments, loops, and rotations would lead us into a trance…
On the other side, an energetic, nonconformist string quartet, as familiar with the finest repertoire (Crumb, Ligeti, Scelsi…) as with unusual encounters beyond expected borders (Albert Marcoeur, Anne Bitran, Fantazio, Moriba Koïta…). Four musicians who question their time in its diversity and from every angle.
The Festival de Chaillol builds a bridge between these two shores.
The challenge: sharing timbres, practices, and searching for points of contact between both cultural areas. Or how can Arab heterophony be submitted to a western harmonic treatment? How can the classical quartet rediscover its modal memory?
The etymology of Al Khatib’s name touches the written and the spoken (katib ‘the writer’, khatib ‘the preacher’). It coincides precisely with this audacious and risky wager. Because can one be sure the encounter will be fruitful? Both parties are fond of adventure(s) and used to listening to the Other. This taste, this desire, already ensure a moment of pleasure.
Catherine Peillon
June 2012, for the Festival de Chaillol
Music
Ahmad AL KHATIB & Frédéric AURIER
With
Le Quatuor Béla
Julien Dieudegard & Frédéric Aurier, violons
Julian Boutin, alto
Luc Dedreuil, violoncelle
Le Duo Sabîl
Youssef Hbeisch, percussions
Ahmad Al Khatib, oud
Création
Juin 2012,
Festival de Chaillol
Production
Festival de Chaillol
Supported by DRAC Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur
CD supported by Qattan foundation.
Tour with La clique production
Sélected for Babel Med 2013
Médias
Vidéos
Revue de presse
Aboute Duo Sabîl
Music
Radio : l’Écoute des Mondes (RTS)
Dates
- Wednesday, March 21st 2018, Théâtre de l'Olivier, Istres
- Thursday, June 1st 2017 20:30, Cluny, Farinier de l'Abbaye
- Thursday, August 25th 2016 20:30, Festival les Musicales en Normandie, Chapelle Corneille à Rouen
- Friday, August 12th 2016, Festival de Chailllol, Pays Gapençais
- Monday, March 23rd 2015 20:30, Vacarme de Printemps, Salle des Fêtes la Sabaudia, Pont de Beauvoisin (73)
- Saturday, March 21st 2015 19:00, Chapelle Fondation d'Auteuil - La Côte-Saint-André, festival les Détours de Babel
- Friday, March 20th 2015 20:30, Théâtre de la Grande Ourse, Villeneuve les Maguelone