# Anouar Brahem one of the most original and talented musicians … Video

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2017/10/20/anouar-brahem-one-of-the-most-original-and-talented-musicians-video/
- Published: 2017-10-20T09:05:20+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**20.10. – Happy Birthday !!! In the course of nine innovative, timeless albums 
spread over twenty years, Anouar Brahem has established himself as one of the most
original and talented musicians yet to record on the prestigious ECM label.**

Brahem is the oud’s conjuror, a master at bringing out the acoustic magic which 
this age-old traditional Oriental lute carries inside its calabash: the musical 
heritage of the Arab and Islamic worlds.Brahem is a phenomenon, a concentrated mix
of prolific paradoxes: he is a supremely subversive classicist; a solitary soloist,
resolutely open to the world; and a “culture smuggler”, a man ever inclined to venture
beyond his own limits and push back musical frontiers… without yielding an inch 
to aesthetic standards forged across time and tempered with deep respect for tradition.

Because he has always recognised this fundamental complexity, it has become his 
strength. And because he’s always sought to weave this abundance of influences and
disparate passions inside the very material of his work and compositions, Anouar
Brahem is today recognised as one of the rare composers and improvisers capable 
of inventing a form of music which is totally rooted in an ancestral culture: it
is highly sophisticated, yet eminently contemporary, and its ambitions are global.
Brahem brings the bewitching poetic colours of the oud to a host of diverse musical
canvases.

From the rich repertoire of Jazz – John Surman, Dave Holland and Jan Garbarek are
just some of the leading players to succumb to Brahem’s melodic spells to the multiple
and diverse traditions of Mediterranean and Oriental influence, from his native 
Tunisia to the confines of India and Iran, his sensitive yet rigorous music ceaselessly
redefines a cleverly composite universe of poetry and culture, ever balancing between
discretion and sensuality, nostalgia and contemplation.

Born in 1957 in Halfaouine, in the heart of the Medina in Tunis, Anouar Brahem was
ten when he began studying the oud at the National Conservatory in Tunis, and later
pursued his apprenticeship with the great master Ali Sriti.In an Arab musical environment
where popular songs and crowded orchestras dominated – the oud was reserved for 
accompaniment – Brahem revealed his many facets in undertaking a mission to restore
the oud to the status of an emblematic solo instrument in Arab music, and at the
same time breaking with tradition in his work as a composer by integrating elements
of jazz and other musical traditions from the Orient and the Mediterranean.In 1981
he moved to Paris for four years, where he collaborated with Maurice Béjart and 
composed numerous original works, notably in Tunisian films and theatre. On his 
return to Tunisia in 1985, he spent the next five years composing and giving concerts
which established his reputation.In 1989 he met producer Manfred Eicher, who gave
Brahem the opportunity to record his first album for the highly prestigious ECM 
label. _Barzakh_ marked the beginning of a particularly fruitful association which,
in the space of twenty years, has seen Anouar Brahem in the company of some of the
world’s most talented musicians, whatever the genre or tradition : Barbarose Erköse,
Jan Garbarek, Dave Holland, John Surman and Richard Galliano to name only a few.

In 2014, after six years of silence on record, Anouar Brahem has published _Souvenance_(
ECM), an ambitious double-album whose sound is at once a sumptuous aesthetic synthesis
of 15 years of experiment in his quest for an authentic “common understanding” between
Orient and Occident, and an offbeat, personal and reflective response to the events
in Tunisia early in 2011.

To date, Brahem has recorded no fewer than eight other albums, all of which have
received similar public and critical acclaim : _Conte de L’Incroyable Amour_ (1991),
_Madar_ (1994), _Khomsa_ (1995), _Thimar_ (1998), _Astrakan Café_ (2000), _Le Pas
Du Chat Noir _(2001), _Le Voyage De Sahar_(2006), _The Astounding Eyes Of Rita_ (
2009). In 2006 his love for films became tangible when he directed and coproduced
his first documentary film “Mots d’après la Guerre”, made in the Lebanon following
the war between Israel and the Hezbollah.

The film was selected for the Locarno Film Festival. In 2010 Anouar Brahem was appointed
to the Jury for the official feature-film selection shown at the Carthage Festival
in Tunis. Considered in his country to be the most innovative composer and instrumentalist
of recent years, Anouar Brahem enjoys considerable esteem among young Tunisian composers
and oud-players; and today he has become, more than ever, one of the most influential
figures in contemporary music, both in the Arab world and beyond. In 2012, shortly
after the revolution in Tunisia, he was named a Life-Member of the Tunisian Academy
for Science, the Arts and Literature.

In the course of his career Anouar Brahem has obtained many awards and decorations:
the “Prix National de la Musique” (Tunisia, 1985); an Edison Award for his album
_Le Voyage de Sahar_ (Netherlands, 2006), and an Echo Jazz Award as “Best International
Musician of the Year” for his album _The Astounding Eyes of Rita _(Germany, 2010).
In 2009 he was decorated “Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres” by the French State.

Today he appears regularly on the most prestigious stages of the world.

![Image result for Anouar Brahem](https://ecmreviews.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/
ab.jpg?w=640)

### _Related_