Past Programs
Orchestral - 2008
Israeli Andalusian Orchestra (First Broadcast on 31/3/2008)
26/09/2008
With the soaring, inspiring voices of Emil Zrihan and Haim Luc, and an instrumentation that mixes Western strings with instruments played in North Africa, the Israeli Andalusian Orchestra’s CD Jerusalem is a powerful, celebratory recording.
This music reached Israel when Sephardic Jews immigrated from North Africa in the 1950s and 1960s, but in Israel’s early years their music was marginalised due to Israeli society’s focus on developing its own culture. Ironically, the massive immigration of Russian Jews, including large numbers of musicians, especially violinists, facilitated the formation of a large, Arabic-style orchestra. Moroccan-born musicologist and founder of the Andalusian Orchestra, Dr. Avi Eilam-Amzaleg, helped pull together the Moroccan and Soviet-born musicians by arranging and notating the arrangements for the Orchestra and composing many pieces based on traditional Moroccan-Jewish sources. But the singers are, with their big, generous and inspiring voices, the stars of this CD.
Natacha Atlas
13/08/2008
On her latest CD, Ana Hina, Natacha Atlas leaves her own Arabic/Dance music fusions for her own interpretations of some Middle Eastern pop songs that blended East and West fifty years ago.
With the all-acoustic band The Mazeeka Ensemble, directed by guitarist/pianist Harvey Brough, she interprets songs by the superstars, Lebanese singer Fairouz and Egyptian singer Abdel Halim Hafez. She evokes the exciting spirit of Cairo in the ’Fifties and ’Sixties - a place where composers and arrangers changed Arabic popular music by introducing Western elements - harmony, orchestral strings, big band swing and electric guitars. She also includes a Nina Simone-influenced version of Black is the Colour of My True Love’s Hair and some original compositions - a song about insomnia personified with a Stravinsky-influenced arrangement, and one about a hesitating soldier.
Israeli Andalusian Orchestra
31/03/2008
With the soaring, inspiring voices of Emil Zrihan and Haim Luc, and an instrumentation that mixes Western strings with instruments played in North Africa, the Israeli Andalusian Orchestra’s CD Jerusalem is a powerful, celebratory recording.
This music reached Israel when Sephardic Jews immigrated from North Africa in the 1950s and 1960s, but in Israel’s early years their music was marginalised due to Israeli society’s focus on developing its own culture. Ironically, the massive immigration of Russian Jews, including large numbers of musicians, especially violinists, facilitated the formation of a large, Arabic-style orchestra. Moroccan-born musicologist and founder of the Andalusian Orchestra, Dr. Avi Eilam-Amzaleg, helped pull together the Moroccan and Soviet-born musicians by arranging and notating the arrangements for the Orchestra and composing many pieces based on traditional Moroccan-Jewish sources. But the singers are, with their big, generous and inspiring voices, the stars of this CD.
