Oud

The Confederation House is a good lace to find eastern music. Last Thursday we went to a concert in which a Mroccan old player wh o studied with an Iraqi master played that graceful instruument with his ensemble f accordionist, two percussionists, bass fiddler and kanonist. Wonderful.

Beit HaConfederatsia also holds a vegetarian restaurant (no fish) with vegan dishes marked.

Copyright 2017 Jane S. Fox

Beit Aba

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRz4jE0x0lU Elad Gabbay vocals, oud, qanun; Eliyahu Digmi Turkish saz; Ilan Keynan vocals, guitars; Ora Baranes vocals and guitar; Yoni Sharon percussion and background vocals; Yehuda Ashash bass presented a rousing concert. First time I'd every seen an electric oud. It looks wrong, and its sound takes some getting used to. I don't know why Gabbay looked unhappy much of the time. His music was lively and much appreciated by the audience, which participated in several numbers. Bet HaConfederatsia (http://www.confederationhouse.org/en/ ) is a venue to check out. You'll be pleased with yourselves for finding it.

Copyright 201 Jane Schulzinger Fox

Persian Oud

• Wednesday's oud concert, concluding the Oud Festival, featured a Persian quartet from Los Angeles. The US Cultural Attache introduced them in English, saying they showed American influence. Aside from the lead singer's possibly American accent, I couldn't sense any.
• Words to the poetry by Attar (http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/A/AttarFaridud/ ), Rumi (http://www.khamush.com/), and Nurbakhsh. For the concert of Asher Mizrahi's work (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/oud.html), they projected the words on a screen behind the musicians. For this one they projected views of the musicians, which gave us closeups of nimble fingers on oud, psaltery (played with qwo tiny hammers shaped like spoons or miniature skis), and drums.
• This oud was shaped like a figure 8.
• The music took us east, reminding me of India or even China.
• (Note the comment below. Now I'll try to discover whether "oud" and "psaltery" are general enough terms to include the instruments at this concert.)

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

Oud

• And if you can't come for Succot (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/all-together-now.html ) come in November for the annual Festival of the Oud (http://www.gojerusalem.com/SitePage.aspx?SiteID=175 and http://www.confederationhouse.org/english/festivals/oud/ ). For Midwestern Americans it is a different form of music. I think that if you are even a little bit open, the sound will captivate you.
• Oud, tabla (drum), and another stringed instrument like a small harp held flat on the musician's lap, plus a very thready Arab "recorder" (the kind you blow into). Two male singers. One female. Oh, she was so good! She came pnto the stage bulgy in her black lace top (over a gold lamee skirt) showed every bulge. No glamor. Just voice. Heavenly voice.
• It was mostly music and lyrics by one man, Jewish, born in Jerusalem in 1890, who wrote Arabic, Hebrew, and Ladino (http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Spanish-Ladino/ old Spanish dialect spoken by descendents of Jews exiled from Spain) poems in Jerusalem, Tunisia and Egypt. He also wrote music, although his poems are also sung to mudic from Arabic movies of the 1930s. (See http://www.confederationhouse.org/english/festivals/oud/schedule/?date=12-11-2006 )
• A lot of the audience knew the songs and sometimes sang along to complicated rhythms and scales and melodic patterns very, very foreign to western ears.
• If the musicians came to Madison, even there listeners might be entranced, even with ears conditioned to different scales. ButI sat among people whose music it is.
• You may feel a little lost. The patterns you expect in music don't form. But the energy grows. By the end, after the third or fourth repitition, I could join (in a diffident undertone) the chorus of Ya Khabibi.
• Last night Michael went to a concert of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim music oud music. Also spectactularly good. I also managed to get a ticket for the concluding concert of Persian music.
• Why didn't we notice the Festival in time to buy tickets to every singel concert (except maybe the hard rock opera)? We did but thought,"Oud. One concert will be enough of that." Wrong!
• If you're coming to Israel in November, buy tickets ahead of time for the Oud Festival.
• See also http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/performing-arts-in-jerusalem.html because three or four of the Festival artists also appeared with The Tizmoret http://cdbaby.com/cd/tizmoret )

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox