Music as a Mirror of History

This grand collection is a beautiful example of the rich and varied sounds from across the globe. First in a series of Fifteen Volumes (or Seventeen Dics)

THE PROJECT:
Ten years in the making, The Music of Islam series recorded in Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, Yemen, Pakistan, Indonesia, Iran and Qatar represents the most comprehensive sound documentation available to Westerners today, of a world religion dating back to 1/622. Although governed by strict rules for fourteen centuries, contact with other cultures has radically affected Islamic music throughout history. As the world enters the XV/21st century the timing of this collection serves an even larger purpose, documenting the traditions that have survived and will continue to survive for centuries to come. Today, one fifth of the world's population, one billion people, are Muslims, occupying a large territory stretching from the Atlantic shore of north and west Africa, through west, central, and south Asia to island southeast Asia, and attracting an increasing following in India, western Europe, north America, east Asia, and southern Africa.

This is a global presence which cannot be ignored.

The musicians featured in this volume are regarded as some of the most outstanding and sought-after studio musicians in all of Egypt. They play traditional Arabic instruments and are masters of classical, folk and popular music. The ensemble includes Mamdouh El Gbaly playing 'ud (lute), Mostafa Abd El Khalek playing the qanun (zither), Mohammed Foda playing the nay (flute), Khaled Gomaa playing tabalah (goblet drum), Ibrahim Gomaa playing duff (frame-drum), and Hesham El Araby playing riqq (tambourine with small cymbals).

Truth in Our Time complements American minimalist’s new symphony with compelling programming including Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 9, Korngold’s Violin Concerto, featuring James Ehnes, and potent contemporary works by Nicole Lizée and Yao.  "The concert was as much a capsule presentation of the orchestra as an institution as well as a performing ensemble. The NACO has a crisp, slightly light sound, sonorous but expressive through articulation, color, and agility rather than mass, and this suited all the pieces," New York Classical Review of the US Premiere at Carnegie Hall, April 2022

Rock N Roll is the fourth studio album by Ryan Adams. The album features the hit single "So Alive", and includes guest appearances by Adams's then girlfriend, actress Parker Posey, former Hole and Smashing Pumpkins bass player Melissa Auf der Maur, and Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong. Adams describes the album as "the most rock thing I have ever done", and notes that in spite of the album's mixed reception, recording it was "fun as fuck".