I'm still trying to figure this video out (anyone have any information?) But this is an all Arabic female performance of traditional Moroccan music featuring singer Bahaa Ronda. Her voice is effortlessly beautiful.
I am so fascinated by how the violin is played upright like a cello in this Arab-Andalusian musical tradition called Gharnati.
Ronda also performs with the Chabab Al Andalous Rabat Orchestra. The Kennedy Center recently featured them on the Millennium Stage. See the live broadcast here. The Milliennium stage has a free to the public performance every day of the year at 6pm and archives every performance on their website. So if you are ever looking for something new, from classical music to world hip-hop, this is a wonderful resource.
The Kennedy Center recently held a festival called Arabesque: Arts of the Arab World.
Sharing the varied music and culture of the 22 Arab nations across the globe, the program also featured exhibitions of art installations, dance, fashion, a soundscape, cuisine, a marketplace and more. Check out the website, there are many links and resources to help you discover this
wealth of culture.
Kudos to the Kennedy Center for helping Americans learn a little bit more about the Arab world and therefore bringing understanding and appreciation between our worlds.
Thanks to Yaffa and my Mom for telling me about this!
3 comments:
THE thing that really draws me into middle eastern music in general is the beauty of bitter sweetness, the way the music makes me think about landscapes, texture,and how it just draws me back to another time.
This is great, thanx for posting it. She was at the music festival in Paris last year but I didn't know who she was.
400 years ago (month of March) Spain banished its indigenous Iberian Moslem population....forever.
The surviving descendants of these Spanish Moslems ie. Bahaa Ronda live dispersed throughout North Africa...and keep alive the memories of their ancestral homeland...as it was....in the Middle Ages.
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