Sami Abu Shumays

Well, it's been a new life for me lately... I haven't been active with the podcasts or blog because I've been going through a lot of changes... though I'm embarrassed to say that I still have a few podcast recordings I haven't posted yet (especially a really good one from Sinan Erdemsel). 

So Zikrayat (www.zikrayatmusic.com) is kicking off its most exciting season yet with a performance tonight at Joe's Pub, as part of the Brooklyn Maqam festival that's been going on this month (sponsored by the Brooklyn Arts Council www.brooklynartscouncil.org)  I'm really excited and nervous, because it's our highest profile show to date and it's already sold out!  well, not technically--because the tickets are free--but all reservations have been taken, and Reuter's TV is coming to film and interview us...

We're performing back to back with Amir ElSaffar's (www.amirelsaffar.com) Iraqi Maqam group, Safaafir.  On Tuesday night both he and I had an interview at WBAI, and I also brought our oud player Dimitri Mikelis, and our new vocalist Salah Rajab, and we did some nice performing in the studio... it was nice to do a little back and forth with Amir.  You can listen to the interview & performances online at: http://archive.wbai.org/pls.php?mp3fil=17376 , or download the mp3 directly at: http://archive.wbai.org/files/mp3/080319_000001morc.MP3

We have a number of other exciting shows coming up this spring... check in with the Zikrayat website to find out more.  Robin and I have been crazy busy planning, organizing, and rehearsing for these shows (including another really exciting show slated for May 15th at the CUNY graduate center, which will be a multimedia presentation featuring live performances accompanying silently-projected clips of the vocal and dance numbers from Egyptian films that we'll be performing).

But my other big news is that I am now a full-time employee of the queens council on the arts (www.queenscouncilarts.org); I'm the new director of the Queens Community Arts Fund, which is the re-granting program of the Queens council... basically I administer money from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) and JPMorgan Chase that we re-grant to artists and non-profit arts organizations in Queens.  for 2008 we gave $247,000 to 85 different artists and organizations.

A big part of my work is outreach to the Queens arts community, encouraging artists and organizations to apply for our grants--so if you are a Queens artist or know any Queens artists who might be interested in applying for grants through the Queens council, don't hesitate to contact me at 718-647-3377 x19 or email me at sshumays (at) queenscouncilarts (dot) org   applications for the 2009 funding cycle will be due this september and october.

I'm now in my second week of work here, and I'm really loving it.  The office is in the middle of Forest Park in Queens, my co-workers are great, and I'm gradually getting to meet more artists and organizations in Queens--so it's really rewarding.  Of course it is a major adjustment in my lifestyle, especially given that we've been so busy with performances, rehearsals, and preparations this last month...

I'll do my best to keep posting podcasts... though I'm not promising anything!  but I have a number of musicians that I keep talking about doing podcasts with... so if you check back, you may see some more posts eventually!

Well, in a few hours i'll be getting on a plane to San Francisco for a week of rehearsals, workshops and a concert with Aswat, a Bay-Area-based Arabic choir and orchestra--at which I'll be one of several guest artists, including a wonderful vocalist from Tunisia, Noureddine Kallel.  For any of you in the Bay Area, the concert will be this coming Saturday, Dec. 1st in San Mateo.  details can be found at Aswat's website, www.zawaya.org

I'll be giving a few maqam masterclasses on thursday evening and sunday afternoon, details at www.maqamlessons.com

I'm very much looking forward to seeing a lot of friends and students from Lark camp--I have to say, I really like the world music scene out there in northern california.  Unlike here in New York, it seems like a lot of musicians from a lot of different traditions know each other; they get together and explore each other's music quite a bit.  Here in New York, I know almost all of the Arab musicians & musicians who play for Middle Eastern Dance; but I know only a few Indian Musicians, and almost no musicians from other traditions... But I know they're out there!  (I'LL FIND YOU!!!)

But of course I'll miss my wife for a week.  We just had a lovely little vacation together in the Hudson Valley, at a place called Greenwood Lake, near Warwick, NY.  (we stayed at a wonderful inn called Anton's on the Lake www.antonsonthelake.com that I highly recommend).  We visited a spa, a winery, and a lovely art and craft town called Sugar Loaf, NY.  It was a nice little vacation; we went there last year, too, for some apple picking (you can see a sickeningly cute picture of us posing our faces in a cut-out painting of a lamb and a pig in front of an apple tree--from our trip last year--in my gallery).

So I'm off!

Before you listen, please take a minute and vote for us (Zikrayat) for the
2008 Independent Music Awards--we need your votes to win!
vote here: www.musiciansatlas.com
see the post below for more details.

This is our most recent performance from Alwan www.alwanforthearts.org
last Saturday night.  We had a great crowd and I think it was our best show yet!  The lineup was:

myself, on violin, vocals, rababa
Bridget Robbins, Nay
Tareq Abboushi, Buzuq, vocals
Dimitri Mikelis, Oud
Johnny Farraj, Riqq, vocals
Nikolai Ruskin, Tabla, vocals
     with
Salah Ragab on vocals
Gaida on vocals
     and
Dances by Dameshe, Leela, Nahara, and Yowalka

This is the first set of the show, and it featured Salah singing with us for the first time--he sang three songs beautifully; "Gameel Gamal," the second of the three, was really amazing. . . so full of soul and tarab; it's hard to believe he's performing for the first time--he's only 19, and has never sang publicly before this event!

Here's the set:
1.  Doulab Zanjaran   --(composed by myself)
2.  Pickles --(composed by Tareq Abboushi
3.  "Naima veil"--a dance number we found on an old film of Naima Akif called "Ahibbak Ya Hassan"; Dameshe did a solo to this number.
4.  "Ya-msahar eini" --a song for the pop singer Rami Ayash, featuring Salah Ragab
5.  "Gameel Gamal"--a song by Farid el-Atrash, featuring Salah; Nahara did a Shamadan solo (flaming candles on her head) to this number.
6.  "Yana Yana"--a song for Sabah, featuring Salah
7.  "Mafeesh Filoos"--a song for Lebanese singer Nasri Shams id-Din; with myself on vocals;  Dameshe, Leela, and Yowalka performed a group choreography to this number.

Enjoy!

Dear Friends, Listeners, Fans,

First, our Album "Zikrayat: Live at Lotus" has been named a Finalist in the 2008 Independent Music Awards!  I'm very excited, but I need your help: fan's votes will determine the final winner, and if we win they will make substantial promotional efforts for us in 2008, including selling our music in Border's Books.

So please take a minute to visit: the IMA jukebox at:
IMA Jukebox
and vote for us now.  If that link doesn't work, go to:
http://www.musiciansatlas.com/pages/IMAFinalist
click on "Album Finalists" and go to the category "Live Performances"
If you'd like to hear samples of other tracks from the album not included on the jukebox, please visit:
http://zikrayatmusic.com

The other news is, you can see for yourself, that i've updated and re-coded my website so that it and this blog page would be one entity rather than two.  I've been learning HTML and CSS coding over the last few months (in order to supplement my income a bit), and even though the website doesn't look that different--you can see the old site at
http://samimusicworld.com/archive/originalsite/index.html
I've entirely re-coded it into CSS to make it standards compliant.  The design is the original one by my wife; the new design doesn't change much visually, except changing most of the text into html rather than photoshop images.  you can view the source code if you like.

So, I know I keep saying i'm going to resume putting up regular podcasts (as well as the maqamlessons), and i will--thanks to all of you from all over the world who have written asking about them!--but it was suggested to me that i should actually start blogging, to keep fans and friends informed--and i realized that i haven't been taking full advantage of this page--i can put up blog posts in addition to podcast mp3s.  So this marks the start of that: i'll be putting up blog entries about what's going on with myself and zikrayat, in addition to podcast mp3s. 

Thanks for listening and writing!

Yours,
Sami

Amir ElSaffar, Iraqi-American Jazz Trumpet player, Singer and Santur player, discusses his newly released CD Two Rivers. He talks about the different ways he has combined Iraqi Music (of the Baghdad Maqam tradition) with Jazz in these pieces, and talks a little about his history with both kinds of music.

The CD is available now on Pi Recordings and at amazon.com

for more information on Amir and the album, please visit the Two Rivers myspace page and Amir's Website: www.amirelsaffar.com

CD release party at Joe's pub, Monday Oct. 22nd, 9:30pm

Anne Elise and I chat about The global youth village
http://globalyouthvillage.org/,
where we were teaching in July; and the Jefferson Center
http://jeffcenter.org/
in Roanoke, VA, where she is the educational programs coordinator

The young students at the Global Youth Village play 3 pieces (doulab bayati, doulab sikah, doulab hijaz) they learned by ear in their first week, and talk about how learning arabic music is different than the kinds of music they do. For more information on Global Youth Village, please visit: www.globalyouthvillage.org

This is the last podcast from last year's lark camp... as I depart for this year's camp...  The incomparable Brian Steeger, one of the true characters from lark camp, plays some music, makes us laugh, and gives his philosophical reflections on music.

Recorded after Lark Camp last year.  Mark and Ling Shien are a husband and wife musician team based in Marin County, CA, in the Bay area.  They've just released their latest CD "Spice Box" and updated their website:

www.helmmusic.com

In this podcast we highlight their musical diversity and chat about their history together.

Bridget Robbins plays nay and flute; we play a turkish piece, a baroque flute duet, she plays an armenian piece, and we play some Arabic tunes... and some nice conversation...