Of today's Turkish players I especially like Mehmet Bitmez. He does not play everything he knows how to do in every taksim.
The Armenian-American oud player Ara Dinkjian can be very expressive and has a wide palette of tonal qualities.
Four Arabic players, all with lots of musicality and each distinctly different from each other are
Khalid Mohamed Ali, Ahmed Al Khatib, Simon Shaheen, and Charbel Rouhana. They have all played things I have loved and listened to over and over.
And then there's Anouar Brahem with excellent sound and very clear delineation of musical ideas.
That's just a few of many. Mostly I listen to players of bygone days. There was a different musical ambience in the first half of the 20th century and
it speaks to me. |