Espresso 5.8

A daring wife disguises herself in order to be hired as a prison guard and thus rescue her unjustly detained husband: the story of Leonora, taken from the French novel by Jean-Nicolas Bouilly, is familiar to us through Beethoven’s only opera.

These young musicians from Egypt, Turkey, Portugal and Italy bridge the distance between the shores and sonic worlds of a rapidly changing region. Their first album, recorded in Paris, blends both timbres and backgrounds in a unique artistic collaboration with Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, supported by Abu Dhabi Festival. The composition process is a compromise between the written score — the notes on the stave — with an exclusively oral tradition, in which the theme is developed only by those taking part, first by listening to it and then by repeating it. Their music is influenced by the folk music of each country and by much improvisation and jazz, and uses melodies from the European classical tradition blended with rhythms and instruments of the Middle East.