Montreal International Jazz Festival presents

Anouar Brahem Quartet

Anouar Brahem is the oud’s conjuror, an authentic 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 recognized this fundamental complexity, it has become his strength. And because he’s sought to weave this abundance of influences and disparate passions inside the very material of his work and compositions for nearly forty years, Anouar Brahem now creates music free of any named traditional influences but rather in his own image, with the bewitching poetic colours of the oud to enrich a host of diverse musical canvases.

From the rich repertoire of Jazz – John Surman, Dave Holland, Jan Garbarek and Jack DeJohnette 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 constantly redefines a cleverly composite universe of poetry and culture, ever balancing between discretion and sensuality, nostalgia and contemplation.

Anouar Brahem Quartet will be performing at Théâtre Maisonneuve as part of the 43rd edition of the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal.

Anouar Brahem, oud
Klaus Gesing, bass clarinet, saxophone soprano
Björn Meyer, bass guitar
Khaled Yassine, darbouka, bendir

Sunday, July 2, 2023 at 8:00pm
To purchase your tickets visit: www.placedesarts.com