Abdel Wahhab Al Kayyali.. “Transformation” from the Oud to the Cello
Abd al-Wahhab al-Kayyali does not see that the spread of the commercial song in Jordan and the Arab world affects the experiences of serious musicians looking for a real connection with their cultural heritage, which includes the cultures of the region extending from Central Asia to North Africa. Rather, he indicates, in more than one press interview, that Market openness and technological development since the 1990s have contributed to expanding the presence of Jordanian and Arab musical models that have a different in-depth vision.
A summary that may have led the musician and oud player, who holds a Ph. To produce a richer, more textured and complex sound.
Al-Kayyali will hold a concert at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow, Friday, at the Rainbow Theater in Amman, to launch his project “Transposition”, in partnership with the Jordanian cellist and musician Fadi Hattar. The evening comes more than three years after his last concert in the Jordanian capital.
One of the pieces that the two musicians will perform is titled “Hirah”, and it reflects a melodic narration of various tones and polyphony. It may bear more additions, modifications and improvisations in the advanced stages of the project, which seeks to produce instrumental music within this context.
In an interview with The New Arab, Kayali says: “I worked on the project and developed it recently to try to take advantage of the similar sound range between the oud and the cello; the instrument that I studied during a stage of my musical education at the ‘National Conservatory’ in Amman, and to combine the sound structures of both instruments (the percussive structure). for the lute and the extended one for the cello) to create music that transcends heritage, borders, traditions and genres.
The project combines the bent structure of the oud and the extended structure of the cello.)
He adds, “In this project, I expand my experiences in merging maqam music with harmony and polyphony to produce neo-classical music that merges East and West. Most of the compositions are from my own works that I started working on in the ‘Roots’ album. In Amman, I will partner with a Jordanian cellist Fadi Hattar, with whom I worked on several projects, including ‘roots’.
Kayyali’s first album includes five compositions composed and arranged by him: “In the Mind”, “Morning Breeze”, “Farah”, “Nawa” and “Samehini”, and three compositions re-distributed: “Gharib – Sama’i Hijaz” by the Turkish kanun player Göksel Baktagir and “Dance of Zapion and Beautiful Girls” by the Armenian-American oud player Alan Shavarsh Bardzbanian and “Shurooq” by the Iraqi oud player Jamil Bashir.
Al-Kayali points out that his lack of productions is due to a firm conviction that if he could not add something to the piece, either melodically, spiritually, or technically in playing, then there is no need to compose it, as he wrote “Juzour” pieces between 2009 and 2015, and distributed them in different stages, and ended From her final musical build in 2016.
Kayali describes “transposition” as “a musical expression that means moving or transforming the musical pitch to play smoothly and harmoniously, but its broader meaning is temporal, spatial, rhythmic, modal, natural or/and creating new tools of expression. Therefore, the project focuses on the ease of transmission of instruments of the type One musician to another and its ability to adapt to new surroundings,” he said, adding that he began working on the project last December, under a grant he won from the Arts Council of Canada with Canadian cellist Sheila Hannigan.
At tomorrow’s concert, Kayali will present works from his books; They are: “In Mind” (Amman, 2012), “Forgive Me” (Rabat, 2015), “Volcano” (Montreal, 2021), “Hirah” (Montreal, 2021), and “Emigrant” (Montreal, 2022). ), and he will also perform with Fadi Hattar “Gharib – Samai Hijaz” composed by Goksel Paktagir, and “Zapion Dance – Beautiful Girls” written by Alan Shavarsh Bardazbanian, also from the Greek heritage.
It is noteworthy that Abd al-Wahhab al-Kayyali founded the band “Juzour” in partnership with other musicians in 2012, and produced his first album, which bears the name of the band, with the participation of Muhammad Tahboub (violin), Fadi Hattar (cello), Nasser Salama (percussion), and Arab Samirat (editing and mixing). Pablo Schouler (mastering), Aram Taminian (design), Alaa El-Sakhny (photography), Kayali (oud).
