Simon Shaheen and Paul O'dette at the first Adelaide Guitar festival (Australia).
Hi,
Recently I was lucky enough to be able to attend the Adelaide Guitar Festival for the weekend of 23 and 24 November. I had learnt about the festival
from Simon Shaheen himself when I was even luckier to be able to attend his Arabic music retreat in New York earlier in August (It has been a good
year for me as far as music learning goes). Although Adelaide is about 3000 Kms (about 3 hour flight) away from where I live in Perth, and although I
have used up all my work leave for the year, I still was able to fly to Adelaide to attend the festival for the weekend.
It was a memorable experience for me to be able to listen to Simon Shaheen in a live performance. I had listened to him many times before on the
Taqasim CD with Dr Jihad Ali Racy: a CD which I bought many years ago, and of course in the group class at the retreat where I would find everything
he played quite interesting, even if it was just a scale, or even tuning the oud. The playing was beautiful - satisfying for me as a listener in the
technical mastery of the instrument, and an emotional involvement in the beautiful music which I like. In this particular recital with Paul O'Dette, I
found the Taqsim part that Simon played particularly interesting, because it was quite driving and did not have the silences and the slow build up
that is common on the Taqasim CD, and many Arabic improvisations. Perhaps it was just the way Simon felt on the day, and was perhaps a good contrast
to the lute music played by Paul which had a more peaceful pure effect.
I also want to say how much I enjoyed much of the music at the Adelaide Guitar festival. Although I have never played the guitar, I was really
engrossed in music that I don't often listen to. In particular I remember enjoying the playing of Eliot Fisk, the Australian Saffire quartet, and Kaki
King whose style of playing is not something I usually go for, but still it is amazing how really good artists make you forget everything about
genres, and styles and destroy one's prejudice on how music should sound like, and not sound like.
Going back to Paul O'dette, I really enjoyed his playing so much too. I don't think he and Simon Shaheen compliment each other, but it was more really
a contrast, and I could not imagine how they would play the same piece together for example. I have not listened to the lute much either before this,
but given the way the instrument looks, and that it is a development of the oud, I was expecting that they would sound somewhat similar, but they
really don't sound similar to me. The lute playing has more a peaceful, uplifting effect, and the lute pieces are intellectually satisfying. That
often talked about feeling of Tarab in Arabic music, is in Western music too - I'm sure of it, but it works itself on the listener more slowly, and in
a different way, while the Arabic music is more wild, and emotional and more attached to song and melody which I love. I think I have come to love
both. I would now also miss the beauty of Western harmony when not exposed to it for long. Paul also did some talks that sparked my interest in early
music along with his beautiful playing. I wish the organizers had arranged for Simon Shaheen to do the same, as I felt the Audience in Australia is
not very familiar with Arabic classical music, and would benefit from some more detailed explanation of its different aesthetics. I also wish the
organizers next time would make better arrangements for CDs of artists to be available and for audiences to be able to attend talks easily. Given that
this is the first guitar festival in Adelaide, these are really minor complaints, and I would recommend the festival to anyone in Australia or who is
visting Australia next year.
|
![[*]](images/xmbprobrown/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
