We hope you enjoy this new video of Rabih Abou-Khalil's Arabian Waltz, as performed by the Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma at the beautiful Park Avenue Armory in New York, NY. A native of Lebanon who studied in Germany and lives in France, Rabih is known for works fusing the musical traditions of the Arabic world with jazz improvisation and European classical techniques.
Arabian Waltz was the
centerpiece of Rabih's 1996 album of the same name, which he recorded with
the Balanescu Quartet. This version arranged for the Silk Road
Ensemble retains the driving, complex additive rhythms and improvisatory
melodic lines of the original, but integrates the Chinese pipa and sheng and the Japanese shakuhachi along with Western strings and percussion including
the Indian tabla. Arabian Waltz has become an audience favorite on the Ensemble's tours, and this infinitely flexible piece appears (with Persian kamancheh rather than sheng) on the Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma's 2007 recording New Impossibilities.
Based on the success of adapting this existing piece, the Silk Road Project asked Rabih to compose a work specifically for the Ensemble in a 2008 new commissions workshop. The resulting piece, Norma's Secret, will be performed during the Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma's North America concert tour this spring.
|