I hopped on a SEPTA trolley with Ire, who (fun fact!) is quite the trumpet player herself -- so we were both looking forward to an escape into the music of Fathy Salama, an Egyptian pianist who blends jazz rhythms with Arab instruments and melodic lines. He remains the only Arab to have won a Grammy, so our expectations were high -- and we were certainly not dissapointed.
As we walked into the concert venue, we were immediately mesmerized by the magnificence of the place: light streamed through the stained glass windows and the sea of concert attendees laughed and chatted among themselves in a babel of languages.
Quite the welcomed change from the silent, beige library walls of the morning.
Soon, Fathy took the stage with the Philadelphia takht ensemble, and we found ourselves surrounded by a hauntingly beautiful combination of the old and new, the Eastern and the Western. Neither of us had heard anything like it before, and we were truly intoxicated by its skillful composition and loving execution. We were transported out of Philadelphia and back to the Golden Age of Arab music, as if an echo of that familiar jazz piano had come with us.
Check out the final piece from the concert here!
xoxo
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