Omar Rudberg

Opal Fire (2002). Son of a UN diplomat and classically trained, exciting young pianist Akram grew up digesting musical influences from around the world. These exotic flavors are brilliantly woven together in melodies that take flight and soar with expansive orchestrations and passionate rhythms and in more soothing moments, evoke an emotional response in a beautifully serene way.
Free As A Bird (2004). Free As a Bird is the much-anticipated follow-up to Omar's 2002 release, Opal Fire. Exotic, sensual, and brimming with life, it was worth the wait! Richly arranged and orchestrated by David Dial and Gregg Karukas, real instruments replace some of the keyboards from the earlier release, and the interaction of great musicians…

After celebrating his 2012 Grammy-winning "Echoes of Love", Omar softens the mood to serenade us with the romantic melodies of "Daytime Dreamer". Featuring six brand new tracks and five previously released selections, the familiar splashes of Omar's signature world textures (oud, duduk, violin and guitar) weave back and forth in a sublime dance with his exquisite piano compositions.

Omar Akram's piano-driven, instrumental music elegantly defies borders and has played a crucial role in defining modern New Age and World music. In 2013, he became the first Afghan-American to win a Grammy Award with ''Echoes Of Love''. In 2013, he also released ''Daytime Dreamer,'' presenting an enchanting blend of World, New Age and electronica music that lures listeners with masterful musicianship and his well-traveled wisdom. ''Destiny'' was produced by the legendary Walter Afanasieff and features an eighty-piece symphony orchestra conducted by Shardad Rohani (Yanni: Live at the Acropolis).

On Sentir, the globetrotting, Cuban-born pianist Omar Sosa is joined not by a full band, but rather by a host of percussionists and vocalists. Sosa remains focused on communicating a kind of ecstatic, multicultural religiosity – most of these tracks are dominated by fervent chanting in one of several languages, underscored by rolling percussion grooves. Sosa's piano is the only Western instrument on the scene, a fact that somehow gives it added power. Like his previous album, Prietos, this one also has a hip-hop element, with Terence Nicholson (aka Sub-Z) contributing rap poetry on five of the tracks.

Now on his 14th release for approximately ten different labels, Texan Omar Dykes keeps the faith by re-recording some of his better tracks, and adding a few new covers. While it looks on paper to be treading water, this is really one of the band's strongest releases, since the material - which has often been inconsistent - is top-notch, and the new Howlers are a crack unit with impeccable chops. Omar attacks and rearranges these songs with the experience of having played them for years, in many cases making these versions more definitive than the originals, an unusual occurrence when an artist revisits his own work…

Acoustic pianist Omar Sosa has done his share of ensemble work, and he has often demonstrated that he is an insightful, thoughtful arranger. But the Cuban improviser takes a break from ensemble work on Ayaguna, which focuses on a July 25, 2002, concert in Yokohama, Japan. This time, Sosa forms an intimate duo with Venezuelan drummer Gustavo Ovalles, who plays a variety of Latin percussion – not only the Afro-Cuban percussion one would expect to hear on a Sosa album, but also various Venezuelan percussion instruments that are used in traditional joropo music. The two musicians enjoy a strong rapport throughout this Latin jazz/post-bop CD, which tends to have a very spiritual quality. In fact, some of the material is mindful of Santeria, a Caribbean faith that contains elements of Catholicism as well as the West African Yoruba religion.

These last years, Omar Sosa has been travelling a lot. In seven African countries, he met some musicians and recorded with them. The result is a remarkable album, a true symbiosis between traditional African musics and jazz.

With every recording Omar Sosa releases, his horizons continue to broaden within the context of world ethnic fusion, but with Across the Divide, he's bettered himself yet again. This collection of jazz-influenced, Latin-tinged music crosses the disparate genres of country folk and tribal sounds, recognizing the migration of the banjo from Africa to the Eastern seaboard of America, and percussion from the griot village to the rural Mid-Atlantic. In collaboration with vocalist and story teller Tim Eriksen, Sosa merges rhythm and ancestry via inspiration from Langston Hughes, John Coltrane, King Sunny Ade, Pete Seger, and contemporary bluesman Otis Taylor as popular reference points.