Lisan Al Tarab

Born and raised in Beirut, Tarek Yamani is a self-taught jazz pianist now living in Berlin after spending almost a decade in New York City. He composes and plays jazz infused with edgy rhythms and melodic modes which he draws from the lands of the Arabian Gulf and Classical Arabic music. He has released critically acclaimed albums and is described by critics as “music full of poetry and mysticism”, “a world-jazz heard nowhere else”, “a revelation”, “an organic hybrid of ecstatic proportion”, “a shimmering spidery piano godliness”.

This concert will feature Yamani’s critically acclaimed album “Lisan Al Tarab: Jazz Conceptions in Classical Arabic,” which is an exploration of classical Arabic music within the frameworks of Jazz. The result, a genre often dubbed as “Afro-Tarab,” is a performance that journeys from early 1900’s Egypt to contemporary New York. The repertoire will include reinterpretations of classical Arabic “muwashahat,” as well as original compositions based on edgy traditional Arabic rhythms and melodic modes.

• Tarek Yamani: piano
• Igor Spallati: bass
• Ugo Alunni: drums