Style
The Al-Andalus Ensemble play both traditional Andalusian music and contemporary works, which draw much of their inspiration from the music of Arabo-Andalusian, Spanish Flamenco, Medieval Spanish, Ladino (Jewish-Spanish) melodies, North African and Arabic rhythms, as well as jazz, Classical, South Indian and Western classical music., with vocals in Spanish, Arabic, Ladino and English to create the musical style which has been labeled "contemporary Andalusian."
They seek to sustain and continue the Andalusian classical music traditions of Tarik's native Morocco and his ancestors' home in Moorish Andalusia. Ted Gioia, author of The History of Jazz, likened Al-Andalus Ensemble's creation of the "contemporary Andalusian" genre to Astor Piazzolla's creation of Nuevo Tango style, essentially saying that both these sets of musicians had revitalized traditional musical styles that were growing stagnant by embracing multicultural influences that allowed them to transform and modernize their traditional music.
Many of the instruments they use in their performance are traditional North African and Middle Eastern instruments: the oud, kamanja, darbuka, tar and rebab, as well as the flamenco cajón, guitar, and palmas and Western instruments such as the flute, saxophone, drum set and piano. Their work is sometimes accompanied by dance performances, including dancers and other world-music specialists.
Robert McBride, music director for Oregon Public Broadcasting, described their music as "something timeless, wonderful and very stimulating."
Read more about this topic: Al-Andalus Ensemble
Famous quotes containing the word style:
“Switzerland is a small, steep country, much more up and down than sideways, and is all stuck over with large brown hotels built on the cuckoo clock style of architecture.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“Sometimes among our more sophisticated, self-styled intellectuals—and I say self-styled advisedly; the real intellectual I am not sure would ever feel this way—some of them are more concerned with appearance than they are with achievement. They are more concerned with style then they are with mortar, brick and concrete. They are more concerned with trivia and the superficial than they are with the things that have really built America.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“Carlyle must undoubtedly plead guilty to the charge of mannerism. He not only has his vein, but his peculiar manner of working it. He has a style which can be imitated, and sometimes is an imitator of himself.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)