Living voices in harmony with Saleem Abboud Ashkar

• Author: BARRY DAVIS
• Published date: 25 September 2021
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

That contrariness doesn't bother Saleem Abboud Ashkar a single jot. The 45-year-old Nazarene-born, Berlin-based internationally acclaimed pianist-conductor happily lives and creates in both worlds, and also does his bit to introduce others to the beauty, joys and emotive splendor that music from the East and West have to offer.

Much of that is facilitated through the Polyphony project, based in Nazareth, which brings together young Israeli and Palestinian instrumentalists from both sides of that cultural divide. That also provides the conceptual backdrop to Ashkar's forthcoming appearance on the last day of the Abu Ghosh Festival, currently taking place at the Yitzhak Rabin Center in Tel Aviv through to September 26. The festival's regular Abu Ghosh venue, the Kiryat Ye'arim Church, is undergoing renovation work.

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Typically, the program for the day covers diverse tracts of musical endeavor kicking off at 2:30 p.m. as the Eldrawish Music Ensemble of the Galilee takes the audience on something of a magical mystery tour of Sufi music. The concert features an instrumental quartet, alongside vocalist Sheikh Mwafak Shahen, while dancer Khaled Abu Ali will, no doubt, get up to all manner of whirling.

Ashkar's writing skills will be on display at 5:30 p.m., in the Nostalgia and Memories – Music with a French Fragrance concert. The slot is described as a "concert with a 20th century European ambience: French chansons, and Arab poetry composed by pianist Saleem Abboud Ashkar, in the spirit of the era," featuring songs in French, Arabic and Hebrew. Soprano Nour Darwish will be front and center, backed by a string quartet of Arab and Jewish members of the Galilee Chamber Orchestra, as they work their way through a varied repertoire of works by Debussy, Fauré, late Romantic Era-composer Henri Duparc, Ravel and Scriabin, as well as the fourth movement from Schubert's Trout Quintet.

The concert closes with Kurt Weill's 1934 number Youkali, and the world premiere of the Ashkar's Songs for Soprano and String Quartet five-parter, featuring Nabeel Haik on piano.

The festival will go out with a veritable bang, when Ashkar conducts The Galilee Chamber Orchestra and its 36 Jewish and Arab members, which operates under the aegis of Polyphony. Prior to its departure for the United States, where it is due to appear at New York's Carnegie Hall...