“The unknown always seems sublime..” – Robert Louis Stevenson.
I must admit that Middle Eastern music is mostly unknown to me. However, in this global culture we live in everything reaches your ‘shores’. Bilal Irshed is a Palestinian Oud player and composer based in Copenhagen whose music came to my ‘shores’ through his percussionist, my dear friend Yohan Ramon from Cuba. Cuban percussion in Middle Eastern music is not something you hear that often, so my musical curiosity got triggered.
I’ve learned from my first conversation with Bilal that the Oud is one of the main instruments in Arabic Music, similar to how the guitar and the piano are in Western music. He started playing the Oud at an early age and was professionally graduated from the School of Music in Jerusalem. Talking about this period he said: “At the Music Academy for Music and Dance in Jerusalem I studied the theories of Arabic and Western classical music (..) but my specialty was performance art, to play the Oud as the main instrument.”
Bilal Irshed Trio
Bent El -Shalabia
Based on his discography list, I decided to listen to the album Chronotope by Bilal Irshed’s Trio. The mystical oriental ambiance of the Oud sound, coupled with the Cuban percussion and the precise playing style on double bass by the Danish bassist Rasmus Møldrup, is genuinely different from anything I’ve heard before.
Some of the tunes such as “Al Mutanabbi” and “Blues for the Oud” are to me what a cultural and musical encounter is all about – the birth of a new common language. When I asked Bilal about the trio’s cultural diversity he stated: “.. With the trio, I try to reflect the qualities that bloom from interconnecting different cultures and musical expressions… The trio is my musical expression, my musical dialect! And I’m lucky that Yohan and Rasmus share these ideas with me, they are not just playing, they also have an understanding of these ideas.”
Luckily enough, soon after my acquaintance with Bilal the trio was booked to perform in the Music from the Modern Middle East Festival at The Royal Library of Copenhagen. I definitely had to see them perform! To say the least, the concert was a revelation not only to me but to the whole audience. Their presentation was contemplative, and even tender at times – their live music acquires an aura of goodness and jolly solemnity. On this occasion, the trio was accompanied on stage by the renowned Ney flutist Moslem Rahal from Syria, who added a poetical depth to their music. Last but not least, the presence of the Sufi dancer Yazan Aljamal’s whirling dance through the music gave the concert a visual expression of wonder and rituality. The performance was, at all times, respectful towards the art and the audience – a truly startling experience!
Bilal Irshed Trio feat. Ney flutist Moslem Rahal
Modern Middle East Festival
The Royal Library of Copenhagen
Coda
When something is unknown to us, we tend to create preconceived ideas to simplify the matter. But, when we finally open ourselves ‘the unknown’ reveals and then we understand that we were on the other side of knowledge for no reason. Middle Eastern music has been a wonderful bridge between the east and the west. The music I witnessed through Bilal’s Trio concert had a deeper effect on me because such an art form is part of a culture that is being torn apart by war and violence – changing it forever. This concert was my encounter with ‘the unknown’ Middle East. Getting to know Bilal Irshed’s music was a sublime journey – a journey through wonders, clarification, friendship, and enlightenment.⊛
Bilal Irshed Trio with guitarist John Sund, dancer Camila Viancos and myself at The Royal Library Of Copenhagen, October 2019.
Main Photo by Lars Krabbe – The Royal Library of Copenhagen
Playlist recommendation
At CM Music, we love proposing music to our followers. This is a playlist of 10 songs by Bilal Irshed from different periods of his musical career -Enjoy!
