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Simon Shaheen
Shaheen is also one of the most significant Arabic musicians, performers and composers of his generation. His work not only looks back on the history of Arabic music, but also continues to push forward, embracing many different styles in the process. This unique contribution to the world of arts was recognized in 1994 when Shaheen was honored with the prestigious National Heritage Award. In the 1990’s he released four albums of his own: Saltanah (Water Lily Acoustics), Turath (CMP), Taqasim (Lyrichord), and Simon Shaheen: The Music of Mohamed Abdel Wahab (Axiom). He also contributed cuts to producer Bill Laswell’s fusion collective Hallucination Engine (Island) and music to the soundtracks for The Sheltering Sky, Malcolm X, and others, while he wrote music for the entire soundtrack of the documentary For Everyone Everywhere. Broadcast globally in December 1998, this film celebrated the 50th anniversary of the United Nation’s Human Rights Charter Recently, Shaheen wrote the music for the documentary of the British Museum’s Egyptian collection. Beginning in the fall of 2001, the collection will tour U.S. museums for three years; the documentary will be an integral part of the exhibit’s introduction for audiences. Born in Tarshiha, Galilee, in 1955, Simon Shaheen grew up surrounded by music. His father, Hikmat Shaheen, was a professor of music and a master oud player. Simon began learning the instrument at the age of five, and a year later began studying violin at the Conservatory for Western Classical Music. "When I held and played these instruments, they felt like an extension of me,” Shaheen recalls. With the oud, my father was the great school for me. Living and playing with him was a powerful influence.” After graduating from the Academy of Music in Jerusalem in 1978, Shaheen was appointed Instructor of Arabic music, performance and theory. He moved to New York City two years later to complete his graduate studies in performance at the Manhattan School of Music, and later in performance and music education at Columbia. In the early 80s, Shaheen formed the Near Eastern Music Ensemble establishing a group that would perform the most moving and highest standard of traditional Arabic music. This time also marked the beginning of Shaheen’s workshops and lecture/demonstrations in elementary schools, high schools, colleges, and universities to educate the younger generation. As a champion and guardian of Arabic music, Shaheen still devotes almost fifty per cent of his worktime to working with schools and universities, including Juilliard, Princeton, Brown, Harvard, Yale, UCSD and others. His concert credits are a veritable compendium of the world’s greatest venues, including Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Cairo’s Opera House, Theatre de la Ville in Beirut, and Belgium’s Le Palais des Arts. In 2000 Shaheen appeared at the Grammy Awards with Sting, arranging the violin section for Stings’ live rendition of “Desert Rose.” As a composer, Shaheen has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts; Meet the Composer, the Jerome Foundation, and Yellow Springs Institute. In addition to his recorded work, his theatrical repertoire includes Majnun Layla, (performed at Kennedy Center and The Museum of Natural History), The Book and the Stranger (from the classic Arabic story Kalila and Dimna derived from the Indian Book of the Animals), Possible City (set in Cordoba during the Andalusian period), and Collateral Damage (a monologue by Vanessa Redgrave. Since 1994, Shaheen has produced the Annual Arab Festival of Arts, Mahrajan Al-Fan. Held in New York, the festival showcases a melody of the finest Arabic artists, while presenting the scope, depth and quality of Arabic culture. And in 1997 Shaheen founded the Annual Arabic Music Retreat. Held each summer at Mount Holyoke College, this weeklong intensive program of Arabic music studies draws participants across the U.S. and the world. For the past six years, Shaheen has focused much of his energies on Qantara. The band, whose name means arch in Arabic, is Shaheen’s vision of the unbridled fusion of Arabic, jazz, Western Classical and Latin music, a perfect alchemy meld where the music transcends the boundaries of genre and geography. “I want to create world music exceptionally satisfying to the ear and the soul,” says Shaheen, which is why I selected members for Qantara who are all virtuosos in their own musical form, whose experience can raise the music and performance of the group to the spectacular.” Qantara, made their first live recording debut on Mondo Melodia/ARK21’s “Historic Live Recording of the Two Tenors of Arabic Music & Qantara,” featuring the Tenors’ Wadi al Safi and Sabah Fahkri. The recording serves up two electrifying instrumental cuts by Shaheen and Qantara: Dance Mediterranea and Al Qantara. Cuts which National Public Radio called “a staggering tour-de-force of technique and passion, which only begins to show the band’s range and capabilities”. (Shaheen also acted as music director for the Two Tenors concert and live recording at the landmark Las Vegas performance). Shaheen also arranged and re-recorded the smash remake of the Latin singer Soraya’s song I’m Yours, recently released on the compilation Desert Roses and Arabian Rhythms. Now Shaheen & Qantara have finally made their full debut album, Blue Flame. The recording will be released this June on Ark21 Records and distributed by Universal nationwide, it more than lives up to the promise they showed on the Two Tenors. New versions of Al Qantara and Dance Mediterranea sparkle like jewels while the title track Blue Flame, lives up to its title as a bravura exhibition of Shaheen’s - and the band’s - skill. |
Dazzling listeners with his soaring technique, melodic ingenuity and the unparalleled grace, which he deftly leaps from traditional Arabic to jazz and classical styles. Simon Shaheen has earned international acclaim as a virtuoso on the oud and violin.