Concert at The Imaterial Festival

FESTIVAL IMATERIAL (1st edition) 
21 JUN 2021 / 18:30
Teatro Garcia de Resende
Évora, Portugal

5

The second part of the concert program will feature Mustafa Said's newest project: "Into The Silence Zone" which was priemered at the Museum of Civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean (Mucem) in October 2020 in Marseille, France.

Notes on "Into The Silence Zone"  by Mustafa Said.

" In literature and history, all people who where known of wisdom, their main advantage was silence. A person would easily find in these books that this prophet or that philosopher was silent most of the time, never talks except when it is necessary to talk.

What happens in these moments of silence? What do we listen? Do we digest what we listened before? Think of them? Or do we listen again from inside as if they get back from inside the ear to outside in a reversed movement like a wave in an ocean?

In silence I listen, most of the time to melodies or sounds that I do not recall them from the memories. Few times, yet, I listen to melodies as if from a phonograph, repeating the same disc. Sometimes more than one phonograph works, sometimes it’s direct, sometimes deep. Sometimes near, sometimes far.

Comparing a poem sang in two melodies by two singers in different decades. But not only the melodies, comparing, inside, even the quality of records, progress throughout time, technology and differences between recording companies in sound.

Differences between two dialects performing one piece of Music, Turkish and Arabic performance of the same piece. Is it really the same piece after these performances?

I try, in this work, to reflect this inside listening that does not have an order or a reason. Make the dialogue with my Oud, or let me say, my imagination of how my interpretation or vision of these waves coming together.

A dialogue between memory and memory, not aiming to show what is listened inside, aiming to try to leave the listener to imagine, nevertheless, maybe to discover what is listened inside of each listener aside."

Mustafa Said.

78RPM discs used chronologically:

  • Ya Nakhletain, Nadhirah ElFransaweyyah, Odeon 1904.
  • Bashraf Qarabatak Segah, Elhajj Sayyed ElSuwaisi, Odeon Ensemble, Odeon 1905.
  • Bashraf Qarabatak Segah, Mohammad ElAqqad Ensemble, Gramophone 1908.
  • Bashraf Qarabatak Segah, Amin ElBuzari, Gramophone 1909.
  • Teh Dalalan, Abd ElHayy Helmi, Gramophone 1910.
  • Bashraf Qarabatak Segah, Tamburi Cemil Bey, Orfion, 1912, taken from the complete record collection of Tanburi Cemil Bey, published in his 100 anniversary, Istanbul 2016.
  • Teh Dalalan, Elshaikh Ali Mahmoud, Odeon 1926.
  • Mohammad ElArabi, Mawwal Dugah, Baidaphone 1927.
  • Sawt Arabi, Sharebna Aala ElNesrin, Abd ElLatif AlKuwaiti, Odeon 1928. From Dr. Ahmad AlSalhi's collection.
  • Bashraf Qarabatak Segah, Ali AlRashidi, Colombia 1929.
  • Sami Chawa, Taqsim Dugah "Bayyati", Odeon 1929.

Works taken from Manuscripts:

  • Tariqah in Segah, Taken from Urmawis Adwar, 13th century.
  • Naqsh Rast, taken from 17th century Ottoman manuscripts.
  • Awhashtena ya Genenar "general Bonapart » taken from a song documented in Cairo 1799, Villoteau, Discription of Egypt, 1817.

All discs are from AMAR foundation except two discs where their sources are mentioned above.
All other works included in the work are contemporary compositions by Mustafa Said. 
Ouds are made by Albert Mansour and Sebastian Stanzel.

Copyright ©2021 Mustafa Said. All Rights Reserved. | created by Dahlia Rashad