Marcel

I got to see Marcel Khalife this weekend in new york. Together with Bassam Saba, he was a special guest with the absolutely amazing Absolut Ensemble at their 'Arabian Nights' performance.

The way this man can transform me with the slightest brush of his oud or his softest 'masa lkheir' is something i fail to express in words. all i can do is share a few facts with you.

- he started with 'The Night's morning" and dedicated it to his late friend Joseph Smaha.
- he sang 'Jawaz El Safar". Need I say more? he dedicated it to the officer at the airport who asked him whether they have music in Lebanon.
- he sang 'Ya Bahriyyee'.
- he sang "Amurru bi Ismiki". Again, no words to say.


I also want to share with you a small part of what he writes in his latest album Taqasim..on his feelings for the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish:

"For many years, my music has enjoyed a special, and especially gratifying, association with the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish. Our respective corpora have grown to be reminiscent of each other, so that the name of each of the twain, instantly and without reflection, would evoke the name of the other. How very appropriate, for all of my musical milestones that punctuate my thirty-year career, beginning with “Promises of the Storm” and culminating with “The Doves Fly,” are graced with the lyricism and poignancy that are uniquely Darwishian. Even before we got to know each other personally, I felt as though Darwish’s poetry, with its divine assertiveness and prophetic cadences, had been revealed to me and for me. I could nearly savor his “mother’s bread” that has become iconic to his readers. I could feel the eyes of his “Rita” as deeply as I could feel the pain that his “Joseph” suffered at the hands of his treacherous siblings, and I could identify with his passport, which I fancied carried my picture, just as personally as I could identify with his olive grove, his sand, and his sparrows. They were all, at a personal level, mine."

and there i was..all inspired and ready to hit the town in style