An Evening with the UCSB Middle East Ensemble

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:03:16]It's okay.

[00:03:47]I like welcome. Crazy.

[00:04:12]Yeah.

[00:04:26]I know.

[00:04:42]I know.

[00:05:18]I never watched them Sorry.

[00:05:57]That would How old I kind of our She's sorry.

[00:09:23]Hallelujah.

[00:12:20]Hallelujah.

[00:13:50]Good evening everybody and thank you very very much for coming.

[00:13:56]Um we're concluding our 37th year as an ensemble here. So we're we're very much thrilled by the ongoing project.

[00:14:12]Um it is our tradition to uh to start by welcoming the co-directors of the ensemble. So the percussion section is led by a duo here Zad Marcus Zad and Nan Rniki Capel. Nan So, you might realize that Zead is my elder son and he's been in the ensemble since he was eight years old. Um, going away to college and going away to Cairo and different places, but here he is back here and we're thrilled.

[00:15:02]And you might notice uh Sue Rniki's picture on either side below the uh speakers here. Sue led our percussion section for she was the co-founder of the ensemble. So we started in ' 89 and she led the ensemble all the way up to January of of LA no June June last June.

[00:15:28]So we uh thank her for her uh huge efforts and the joy she gave to the ensemble and we welcome her welcome her on the stage here at least in the form of these two photos >> and this is Suz.

[00:15:49]We uh we welcome again. Please welcome Maggda Campo. Meghda Megda is uh she helps with the chorus.

[00:16:01]She she is our Arabic language teacher and she's been doing this for some 30 years. Um she works she comes to every chorus rehearsal, teaches us the Arabic word by word, phrase by phrase. We understand the meaning and pronunciation. It's it's a very high quality project that we're doing together. Megdo, thank you.

[00:16:24]And I would just like to point out some of the core members of the ensemble.

[00:16:29]This has become a tradition of ours. So, please welcome Eric Eder.

[00:16:37]And next to him, Vula Aldrich.

[00:16:43]Vua's been keeping count. And she tells us this is her 105th concert in this hall with the ensemble and Jim Grio on the canoe.

[00:16:59]Jim.

[00:17:02]So Jim plays the canoe and you'll hear him play this, but he is also our oud teacher in the department. If you want to learn oud, he is your man. And next to me, Soulmas, the amazing violin of Soulm.

[00:17:19]And behind me here, Michelle Anacordian.

[00:17:25]And I please welcome Devvin, our clarinetist.

[00:17:31]And we're going to have a number of solo singers in the concert. And uh so I just want to point them out now so that you know who they are. Andrea, Dr. Andrea Fishman and Alexis Alexis Story Crunch Cross.

[00:17:49]Alexis and Eric Mesopian Eric and Paul Paul and Devin.

[00:18:04]So we have uh quite a varied show here. We have sets of Armenian music. We have sets of uh Moroccan music. We have sets of music from a set of music that we're going to start with focused on Cairo, Egypt. So and we have have of course a dance company. So we're going to get started with three pieces of instrumental music. Did do you all get programs?

[00:18:34]So the thing about our programs is that we have all the words to all of the songs that we're going to sing. Every word we're going to sing you have in front of you. And you can see it in its original script. You can see it transliterated and translated. And we thank Nan Nan Capel for making this happen. Nan.

[00:18:56]So, please uh please follow along uh while we're singing if you're interested or else you know bring it home, put it by your bedside and you can check it out in the next couple of days, next couple of weeks. It's really a huge project to do this and we're very very proud of it.

[00:19:13]So, as I said, we're going to start with three instrumental pieces. Um these are pieces we learned in I learned myself and others learned here in Cairo, Egypt.

[00:19:25]And the first piece is is an interesting story. If you don't mind, I'll say a couple of words. There's a genre of music which was from Ottoman Turkey. It was it was an Ottoman piece of music called samay. In Arabic, it's called samayi. And in the late 1800s, maybe 1870 or so, that tradition got introduced to the Arab world. And in our case here, Cairo, Egypt, and somayas were imported into Cairo. and they were composed by very the the the most famous Ottoman composers. And these pieces became pieces of Arab music. And so uh some of the some of these people are Armenian, some are Turkish, the one or two are Greek, one or two are Arab. But so these pieces flourished in in Egypt.

[00:20:17]And little by little pe the Egyptian musicians said hey we also can write in this tradition. And so we are going to start with a semi written in the early in the first half of the 1900s in the first half of the 20th century written by Ibraim Arian. So Ibrahim Arian was a canoon player. Jim is playing canon. Ibrahim Arian was a very very famous canoon player. He was so famous if you look in your program you see a picture of him and he he actually in his top of his fame started performing with Om Kthum the most famous uh Arab singer of the 20th century. So you see him in the in the photo I put in the program you see him from 1932 sing performing with Kthunum um next to him in the photo. So this piece has become hugely famous and if you are from somewhere in Jordan, if you're from somewhere Syria or Lebanon and Palestine, if you're from Egypt and you go to a conservatory or a school to learn Arab music, you will learn this song, this this instrumental piece. So the piece is a is a genre called samay.

[00:21:35]And the mode it is in, the scale it is in is called bayati. and his name is Ibrahim Arian. So the pieces Somay Bati Arian. Okay. And the thing about the Somay pieces is that they are all in a 10be rhythm. And so we'd like you to hear the rhythm so you know what you're about to hear. And please Z, do you want to give us this rhythm? The rhythm is called Smay.

[00:22:13]So it is a 10 beat rhythm. Here it goes.

[00:22:17]1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. And it goes over and over.

[00:22:31]1 2 3 4 five 6 7 8 9 10 1 And if I could take this one step further if you don't mind.

[00:22:43]Could you all clap on the doom, please?

[00:22:45]This is called a doom doom. And then there's a tap and boom boom t. That's the whole thing. One of these. One of those and boom boom. That's it.

[00:23:06]So, what is it?

[00:23:08]2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9.

[00:23:21]It's called and then one of the features of Somay the last section is in a six beat and you hear the change. So there's a refrain there's a verse and refrain happens a second verse the refrain happens a third verse and the frame happens the fourth verse is in a six beat rhythm and it goes back to show you the refrains we're going to ask the strings to play it the third time I think we play it and we're going to ask the wings to play it the fourth time. So that's the recurring referral. We hope you enjoy this piece.

[00:24:06]We are going to start with an an improvisation, a solo improvisation on the oud by Eric Eder. Eric Beautiful.

[00:27:44]Beautiful.

[00:28:05]Heat.

[00:28:09]Heat.

[00:28:27]Heat. Heat.

[00:28:52]Heat.

[00:28:58]Heat.

[00:29:12]Heat.

[00:29:23]Heat.

[00:29:27]Heat. Heat.

[00:29:49]Heat. Heat.

[00:30:21]Down.

[00:30:33]Hey. Hey.

[00:30:52]Heat. Heat.

[00:30:59]Heat. Heat.

[00:31:40]Heat. Heat.

[00:31:46]Heat.

[00:31:53]Heat.

[00:32:18]Heat.

[00:32:20]Heat.

[00:32:43]Heat. Heat.

[00:32:50]Heat.

[00:33:05]Heat.

[00:33:27]Heat.

[00:33:31]Heat.

[00:33:37]Heat.

[00:33:47]Heat.

[00:33:57]Heat. Heat.

[00:34:19]Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

[00:34:47]So in in the middle of the 20th century, there's all of this talk in Egypt and this talk occurred in in journals, in magazines and newspapers, and people were saying, the people who were following the music world were saying, you know, the instrumental music we're playing, it's from the Ottoman culture.

[00:35:06]How does that how did that happen? And what about our own music? And it was basically true that there were three genres that could came. There were two other genres that came with the semi and these were featured in all the art music performances Ottoman music and so people said well what about our own music and so they actually there was a talk a talk about uh well what should we do let's create an indigenous Egyptian and they use the word authentic an authentic or Egyptian instrumental genre so that we're playing our music and not playing Ottoman music. They continued to play this Ottoman music up till today. But the genre that they created from about the 1930s was called Kaha. Kita, the Arabic word for it actually means a piece like a piece of music. And uh one of the probably the most famous composer of Kaz was Muhammad Abdul Wahab. So if you have ever looked into Egyptian music, Muhammad Abdul Wahab was without a doubt the most famous composer of the 20th century. Without a doubt the the man and it was from 1933, this is well documented. He started writing kit composing kitas. And he composed in all up till 75. In those years he composed uh 55 kits and they differed from the the somay the Ottoman music in that they didn't have the structure of a recurring frame refrain rather each piece just had whatever structure he wanted to do but one of the defining features features of all the people that composed kitas was they took a section of music and made it some style some feel some rhythm and then right next to it they put an a contrasting style and then the third then they put another contrasting style.

[00:37:06]So the kit is known for having like four or five different things happening. The rhythms change, the styles change, different instruments are featured. So we have picked two of Muhammad Abdulah's kit. Um these are all learned in conservatories.

[00:37:25]Um this is one of the first pieces my professor taught me when I was starting this music at UCLA back in the late 70s.

[00:37:34]Um the first one is called dentlid and it's really quite known among musicians and then there's another which perhaps is a little less lo less known called mid inor and we'd like to play these two for you. So the first one is as I say it's this instrumental idea. you'll see all of the different things happen and because of it it's quite exciting. And the second one is actually a picturesque piece. He's trying Muhammad Abdul Wahab is trying to envision in his music the the processions that happened in in Islam at the birthdays of the greatest prophets uh Muhammad and Hussein and these other people. They would have these processions with huge processions with uh with with camels and with with bass drums on either side of the camel and and uh these were at moolids um these festivals and so he called this mulid inor the the muled of light and this is we are we he gives us a sense that he's trying to depict these these moments And there's a slight vocal moment in it, a short vocal moment where everyone's just going ah just on the ah there's no poetic text. So this is the second of the two. The the first we're going to ask Jim Grio to start the piece with an improvisation as Eric just started the previous piece and I will on the flute the nai start the third piece. So here are two pieces by Muhammad Abdul Ahab called Kah. They're in response to the somay and saying, "Okay, we this is not Ottoman. This is Egyptian. See what you think." Jim Grippo No, no, no.

[00:40:42]Heat. Heat.

[00:42:27]Heat.

[00:42:45]Heat.

[00:43:03]Heat.

[00:43:05]Heat.

[00:43:26]Heat.

[00:43:32]Heat.

[00:43:45]Hey.

[00:44:02]Hey. Hey.

[00:44:05]Heat. Heat.

[00:44:44]Heat. Heat.

[00:45:03]Heat. Heat.

[00:45:11]Heat. Heat.

[00:45:48]Heat. Heat.

[00:45:59]Well, I know.

[00:46:30]Happy birthday.

[00:46:32]Happy birthday.

[00:46:55]Goodbye.

[00:48:55]Oh, hey.

[00:49:56]Heat. Heat.

[00:50:41]Heat. Heat.

[00:50:47]Heat.

[00:50:58]Heat.

[00:51:19]Hey, hey, hey.

[00:51:34]Heat. Heat.

[00:51:49]Heat. Heat. N.

[00:52:14]Oh.

[00:52:21]Oh.

[00:52:26]Oh. Oh yeah.

[00:52:30]Oh.

[00:52:38]Oh.

[00:52:43]Oh.

[00:53:06]Heat. Heat.

[00:53:48]So, we're are going to bring out our dancers now. We have three of our dancers and we're totally changing the scene up here. Um, Jim just mentioned, "What a sweet tune we finished." And the next tune is not trying to be sweet, it's trying to be high energy. There's a genre of pop music which was created when all the superstars passed away. The um Kum who I mentioned passed away in 75 and Abdalem passed away in 77 and Fared passed away in 74 and it's like all the superstars were gone and right about the same time people were creating a a new form of pop music and one of the people that came into the scene a couple day about 15 years later was this fellow Hakeim.

[00:54:41]So we were very lucky. Hakee actually came to Santa Barbara and we met him at at a bookstore and we had a chance his group came to uh to Guy Ringer Hall for I think one day and so this created a relationship for me which I was able to follow when I went to Cairo and I uh I met him and I said actually through his manager I I'm writing a book on Egyptian music. I would like to conclude a chapter on him and could I get an interview from him and can I follow him around for the next month. And so they agreed to this and they gave me this psalm to put on the CD that I was required to have with my book. It was an Oxford University Press books. So this is the uh song that he gave us. And the song is in this new pop genre. People call it a street genre. it in Arabic it's called shabi shabi which means it's a pe it's a people's music you could say it's a folk music but it's an urban folk music and it includes western instruments trap drums it includes keyboards uh organs electronic organs so it's very high energy and Alexandra King the director of our dance company just this recently this quarter choreographed for three of our dancers this piece The song you could see all the words of the song. The song is Ilanda Kabir and it's a it's a little s bit of a sassy song. This guy is in love with this woman. And at the same time as he says what a wonderful thing he has with her.

[00:56:22]He's also feels the need to say to her these words are important. We have to stay together or else I'm gone or else I'm out of here. So, he's being a little bit of of a tough guy, but at the same time in the verses, he's he's exalting the the joy of of this love that he has for this woman. So, this is by Hakeim.

[00:56:46]Please welcome three of our dancers.

[00:56:48]This was created in um early 2000s, I think.

[00:56:58]Let's see what's sing.

[00:58:00]nothing.

[00:58:32]Heat.

[00:58:36]Heat.

[00:58:42]Oh my song.

[00:59:10]Oh my Mommy.

[01:00:09]Heat. Heat.

[01:00:21]And I love my pos.

[01:00:43]Everybody see I want to be my love.

[01:01:39]I love you.

[01:01:52]I love the day.

[01:02:11]So, I think a keen would get a great kick out of the fact that the University of California, this ensemble is is playing this piece here.

[01:02:20]If you have a wedding coming up and want a job for like $100,000 or so, you could get him for your for your wedding.

[01:02:28]A mere $100,000. It'll get the whole the whole group.

[01:02:42]Please welcome Eric. Eric Vasopropian.

[01:02:45]Eric Good evening everyone. Thank you very much for coming. It's a great pleasure to see everyone here. So, we're going to start off with an little Armenian set that I've brought here tonight. And I want to thank Dr. Scott Marcus for making this all happen as well. Thank you very much, doctor.

[01:03:23]So, you know, tonight um decided to bring three Armenian songs and I'll be presenting two of them. The first one which you can see in your program is called zuri nan and what this means is like a breeze. So this was created during the um Soviet Union in the Armenian Soviet socialist republic by um trouidor Gusan Shaheen. A Gusan to give a quick um introduction is basically somebody who has a like a basically like a like a devotion to kind of um carry on the traditions of the culture where they do that via poetry and music and a lot of times they intertwine the two together and this composition zuran is definitely one of those because um it's very poetic where you know it's kind of weird to translate it you know some of the words are like how do I translate this you know um it has you know there are lots of meanings in there about how he's longing for a love and this is um one of his more than 500 compositions during his time in which he's received many different awards for and nonetheless and um so tonight we thought to show you one of them one of his most famous ones thank you very Heat. Heat.

[01:05:35]The pure met them see roots I will coordinate.

[01:06:28]for I am king of the sun for I am God of the co.

[01:07:00]Amen.

[01:07:04]Heat. Heat.

[01:07:38]the pure and all but we know been shore.

[01:08:24]I should kiss for I am God of the S for I Yes.

[01:08:54]God all the Beautiful.

[01:09:35]Beautiful. Beautiful.

[01:09:44]No better than me.

[01:10:11]Thank you.

[01:10:15]All right, thank you very much. All right, it's time to change the mood. So, next up, we have a song called which you can see in your programs as well. This is also a love, you know, it's a love song, not from the same guy though. This is a different person. Um, this is made by composer Alex Kiman during the um Soviet Union as well with the poet for the lyrics being um Ashot Graashi. And this is a song in which um basically what's going on is the man is kind of describing so many different ways about how he loves this woman and what he will do for the love and you know um this is a it's a fun song though and it's something that people will tend to play in settings like weddings for example. Um uh it's very popular. It's, you know, it's and for many people it's one of those songs where it's like, you know, you grow up and then you're like, "Oh, I've heard this." And then, you know, when you're when you're a child, you're like, "Oh, I've heard this." And when you grow up like, "Oh, yeah, this song." You know, so um it's uh used in it's kind of like a a folk pop style um song, which was quite a thing that Alex Hikime, the composer of the piece, um did when he created his pieces during the Soviet Union. This was created around the same time as the song Zapuri Nan that we just completed. And um it's it's very popular for people to just play this, you know, casually, you know, at home. Um even even my dad would play this in his band back in um in Iran. We have an Armenian minority in Iran. Um thank you mom and dad for all your help.

[01:11:48]You're back there in the audience.

[01:11:50]>> And um and um and um and so um we thought to show you this. It's quite a contrast. So, um, you know, have fun with this one. You know, you can dance along, you know, clap along. You can, you know, sing the refrain if you want to. Um, it's a fun little piece. So, I hope you all enjoy it. Thank you very much.

[01:12:43]Check out this new Here is every Oh my goch.

[01:13:30]Oh, is is talking.

[01:14:08]talking.

[01:14:38]Yes, I love you.

[01:14:52]Hallelujah.

[01:15:21]Woo!

[01:15:32]Y is hard. Y talking is hard.

[01:16:04]Thank you.

[01:16:04]>> Thank you very much, >> Eric. Eric Masopia.

[01:16:18]>> Okay. Please welcome Paul. Paul is going to take over here.

[01:16:30]>> Well, hello everyone.

[01:16:32]So, as you can see in your program, the next song is called Shir Khani. It is a uh it's usually performed at weddings.

[01:16:38]It's a celebration of the bride.

[01:16:41]The origin of the word nobody really knows but it can be derived from Persian. Shir is lion and then uh Khan is king. I believe it's the same pairing with the jungle book. Uh if you're familiar with the tiger uh I don't think any either of them have any relation but just a fun fact. Um but yeah, I hope you enjoy Heat.

[01:17:39]Hey, heat. Hey, heat.

[01:17:55]Mother Hey Mother crazy.

[01:18:34]Sh.

[01:18:57]Heat. Heat. Heat.

[01:19:15]Chick.

[01:19:40]That crazy hat Oh sh don't My Heat. Heat.

[01:20:43]Sh hat on Heat. Heat.

[01:21:10]Heat. Heat. Heat.

[01:21:20]Heat. Heat.

[01:21:39]Make sure that Paul and Eric Eric Barrett on the bass drum.

[01:21:57]Barrett Eric Paul Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

[01:22:26]We thank Lillian here.

[01:22:51]So, we're going to uh close the first half with a Greek dance and feature Alexis as our singer. Please welcome Alexis.

[01:23:10]I'll do this first. Okay. Is here.

[01:23:15]Excuse me. I forgot about this. That uh our Arabic language professor on campus, Wah Hijazi, has asked us to to have a word here. And we uh we would like him to come out now.

[01:23:35]He left.

[01:23:37]He left.

[01:23:43]>> Okay.

[01:23:45]He's gone.

[01:23:50]>> Can I say something?

[01:23:51]>> We will. Yeah, please. Please.

[01:23:54]>> Okay.

[01:23:56]is the professor of Arabic language and he is situated in the religious studies department and he teaches for beginners and intermediate and we have advanced Arabic languages too. So if any of the students would like to learn Arabic is the one. So you can go under religious studies and find Arabic language or it will be also under languages Arabic languages. So if any of you would like to learn please go and see. Thank you.

[01:24:53]So I I just want to mention the composer here, Yasamine Zagraos. Zagrifos.

[01:25:01]We uh we work with her daughter Zia and this is the mom. She is the choreographer of this piece. Yasamian Zagrifos.

[01:25:11]Zarafos.

[01:25:12]>> Zagarafos, our Greek language teacher here, Voola.

[01:25:21]>> So, as uh Alexander put in the program, this is probably maybe the most famous Greek dance from an international perspective.

[01:25:31]This might ring familiar to you. Please welcome our dancers.

[01:26:06]You could fantastic.

[01:26:49]Say on the soul I I'm not s All night Single can.

[01:28:02]Can we take it from the top? Take it from top.

[01:28:37]Okay, we're going to take a break now.

[01:28:39]This is intermission. We uh will come back with the second half. Please stay.

[01:28:44]Please stay. I don't know if for those of you who have been at our events, we purposely made this a much shorter concert. We're hoping you're going to stay for the second half. Thank you.

[01:29:15]Daddy Christmas.

[01:29:43]Guys, amazing.

[01:31:00]There he is.

[01:31:33]Why were you there?

[01:31:55]Happy I have a dog.

[01:32:50]Oh my god.

[01:33:45]Thank you.

[01:34:21]All right, guys.

[01:34:58]Come on.

[01:35:03]Come on.

[01:35:40]Thank you.

[01:36:01]Oh my god.

[01:37:15]What's your favorite Look at We should music.

[01:38:55]That was so funny.

[01:39:23]What kind of I was penalty defend very well.

[01:40:09]everyone.

[01:40:16]>> Yeah, he was going against basically the strongest All right.

[01:46:02]That was Thank you.

[01:48:19]So, I don't know if you had a chance to uh read the program notes about the song. This is uh it's a really quite a wondrous story. Um this is the song we're about to perform. It was a composed in probably the teens, 19s by the one of Egypt's most famous singers and composers, Sey Druish.

[01:48:45]And it's it's a piece of art music. It's not a popular piece. It's a it's a piece of what in the west we might think of as classical music. Um it's a song and uh it's set in a rhythm that is not used much anymore.

[01:49:06]Uh and we performed this in 2002 and 2003 in a number of concerts. But this summer uh or this last year, Zad Zad Marcus, he was doing research in Egypt about the historic rhythms of Arab music. And this piece kept coming up and I was had a chance to uh to be with him throughout the summer last summer and I was one of his research assistants and we were doing interviews with various people and again and again this song came up. The point was that very early on there's there's a very famous manuscript uh from 1840 that talked about some 365 songs of of a genre called moasha moasha. And these songs were played in many many different rhythms. A 16 beat rhythm, a 10 beat rhythm, a 12 beat rhythm, a 13 beat rhythm. And among them there were four rhythms that uh were are now considered really rare or e or even non-existent. And they all started with a moo mu. So there's muhagar, there's um muham muraba and what's the fourth?

[01:50:28]>> Mutaw. So they all it's it's a form of a of a word in Arabic. So these four all starting with moo and it was one of it was one of the examples in talking to people well what do you think about these four songs these I used to call them the four moos uh no one in Egypt thinks of it that way but just as an outsider that the names all start with mu and they're saying oh yeah they don't exist they don't exist and anymore and then we asked further and talk about further and they said well you know for muher there is this one psalm and they the musicians would actually start singing it for us and it was this very song. So as I say we've already performed it in 2002 and 2003 but for people in Cairo musicians today this is an example of a rare composition in a rare uh rhythm and this very piece is helping to keep this rhythm alive. So this became u it took on new meanings for Zed and I and then for the ensemble that we could also perform it and keep this rhythm alive amongst all us musicians and amongst our audiences. So in a sense this is a uh an activist stance to take this piece forward and put it in the concerts and make it clear to everyone that yes you are hearing a 14 beat rhythm that was really quite important in the 1840s but in the present day there's no pop singer would think of composing in a 14 beat rhythm.

[01:52:03]None. Right. So there's no there's hardly any uh modern music in this rhythm. But people do play the old music and so it is going on. So we'd like to show you what this rhythm is. Zad, please.

[01:52:32]So this is two 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 1 2 3 4 5 6. So if you remember at the very beginning we talked about dooms and techs. The low sound is called a doom and a high sound is called a tech.

[01:52:58]So this starts with three dooms. But beats one, two, and three are dooms.

[01:53:04]Okay? Each time it comes again, it starts with three dooms. And then the fifth beat is a doom is a tech. And the four five. And from beat seven, it's a four beat a four beat rhythm.

[01:53:24]And then and then there's beat 11. and his 134.

[01:53:30]Okay, put it all together. You ready?

[01:53:34]Doom 10 11 13 14. Can you play love faster?

[01:53:55]One, two, three, four, five, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.

[01:54:07]So you can, this is muhucker. Muhuger.

[01:54:14]Next time, next time you talk to your friend, you say, "You won't believe last night I heard muhar.

[01:54:20]and we can continue to keep this rhythm out alive here. We're being activists here. Okay, please welcome our singers.

[01:54:29]We have Devon and Alexis.

[01:54:59]Holy Jesus.

[01:55:29]I'm not worship.

[01:55:54]Oh, all I can Oh la.

[01:56:52]Oh no.

[01:57:03]Oh, all together.

[01:57:34]Oh, he love oh so Oh, your name.

[01:58:06]Who are you?

[01:58:12]My heart.

[01:58:14]Who are you?

[01:58:19]Oh, I with my heart.

[01:58:42]I'm along me.

[01:59:10]Beautiful.

[01:59:16]Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful.

[01:59:20]Alexis. Alexis and Deon. Deon.

[01:59:26]Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful.

[01:59:38]So we have to do a couple of changeovers before we do our next piece which is a Lebanese depka or depkied. This is one of the uh main dances of the the culture in that entire region. Um Syrians uh Lebanese, Palestinians, everyone in this region grows up uh dancing Deepka or Debk or Debki pronounced differently.

[02:00:08]And as a communal endeavor, it's a usually a line dance. You grab the person on this side, you grab the person on that side, and the leader can do all these very actually very virtuosic movements. Um, it's it's a a dance everyone learns. By the time you're four and five, you followed your aunts and uncles and your parents around as the line progresses. By the time you're 8 and 10, you're in the line. By the time you're 12 and 14, you want your chance to to to lead the lion. So, everyone does dupki. If you don't do dupki, uh it's because you're pissed at the bride.

[02:00:49]You want maybe you wanted that bride and so you were not going to dance in Debka.

[02:00:54]Otherwise, you're supposed to dance.

[02:00:56]Okay. Um but before we do that, I'd like to um congratulate the people who are graduating right now. We This is the time. And we'll start off with Eric Mesopian. Eric.

[02:01:13]So Eric is graduating with a BA in geography with an emphasis on geographic information systems.

[02:01:23]Eric and Howardan Woo. Howardon Howard is graduating in music studies here in the music department and he's going to return home to China when he uh in the next few weeks here. How on I this could this actually gives me a chance to say if you see in our printed program in the back there's an announcement about a a sitar concert this coming Thursday and so I am actually the professor of that of that uh ensemble. I teach the Indian sitar and Howan has been learning the sitar.

[02:02:11]So he is going to be in this concert on Thursday and also sitting next to me.

[02:02:17]Angus is also in this ensemble. So the three of us are going to be giving a a sitar concert on Thursday coming. If you're interested we would love to have you join us. We're not in this hall.

[02:02:29]We're in a smaller hall next door called Guy Ringer Hall. So it'll be a bit more intimate setting. So, howan has surely taken uh advantage of all the possible things here working in different ensembles and all. We will miss you.

[02:02:52]And and Wing Wang Wijing is graduating in electrical engineering.

[02:03:03]Way Jing is an amazing uh student of the oud. He's he's completely virtuosic having spent years with the guitar. It's a joy working with him wijing.

[02:03:20]And then we have a special situation where Anna Annit Galian Galian Galston she's uh doing her PhD here.

[02:03:32]She's what we call ABD and she received a two-year fellowship from the National Gallery of the Arts in DC.

[02:03:42]And so this this is a two-year fellowship.

[02:03:52]She's going to spend the first year doing research in Turkey and in Armenia for the year and then she's going to come back and do the work at the Gallery of the Arts in DC for the second year of her fellowship. This is Anna Heath.

[02:04:15]And I just like to take this opportunity also to thank the center for middlely studies. If you see on the title cover and on the back cover that this uh the ensemble is co-sponsored by the center for middlely studies. They support us to do what we do. And so we thank everyone at the Center for Middle East Studies right here on campus.

[02:04:40]And I should say along those lines, we we have a support group called the Friends of Middle Eastern music. It's an association, the Friends of Middle Eastern Association. And you'll see, I think in the third to last page, there's actually a form where if you were to want, you could make a contribution to what we do here. One of the one of the many things we do is we have a dance company, right? We have a dance troop here. So, we are not the dance department, we are the music department.

[02:05:08]And so to make this happen, we we raise money. We give performances. We just gave a performance at the drip church in town. And we give performances at different universities. We give performances down in LA for different communities of people. We give for the Armenian community in the past for the Arab community, for the Marinite community. We've given many concerts.

[02:05:32]And so these people pay us something and it helps make it happen. So we, as I said, we we support our own dance company and we have all these instruments. Ouds continually need to be repaired. It's just because u it's the nature of an instrument that it gets old and some of the joints give in. So we're continually repairing instruments. The dance company has costumes. So we we have lots of reasons that we need money just to go year in and out. if you were uh able that would be fab if you would support us with that in our friends uh friends group called the friends of Middle Eastern music. So I think by taking all this time I think I've done what I needed to do to have folks ready for the next uh item the DEPA. Yeah.

[02:06:23]Good. Good.

[02:06:35]Did I heat up?

[02:07:07]Shal.

[02:07:27]Heat. Heat.

[02:07:42]Yeah.

[02:07:53]I don't know.

[02:08:14]Heat. Heat.

[02:08:24]Heat. Heat.

[02:08:34]Heat. Heat.

[02:08:46]Heat.

[02:08:49]Heat.

[02:08:59]Heat. Heat. N.

[02:09:15]Heat. Heat.

[02:09:25]Holiday.

[02:09:40]Oh, we've been doing uh DEPA in the ensemble now for 35 36 years.

[02:09:54]Earlier, one of the uh one of the women in our ensemble, her mother joined us.

[02:10:02]And when her mother joined us, she described how her mother was one of the people that started the idea of having school competitions in Lebanon for Debka. It was a brand new idea. and her grandmother her mother and the the the students grandmother was actually one of the people who working in Lebanon at the schools tried to make it happen and succeeded in making it happen. So DEPka became not only a village event and event individual families gatherings but it became this mass major thing where schools competed with each other and so we actually have a direct lineage to that change that happened. So all of a sudden uh the the troop needed the same costumes to be presentational. They thought of facing forward towards the audience, right? Things change when they become presentational as opposed to just a communal dance. And she was a part of this. It was very exciting to hear. So here we go. We still keep this going.

[02:11:07]It's there as I as I think we say in the um in the program notes there always new Deppka songs because people want to want to uh dance Deeppka. So they're always brand new Deepka songs. So if you're a gigging musician you're required to learn, you know, six or eight or 10 new Dep.

[02:11:28]Please welcome Andrea Fishman, Dr. Andrea Fishman, as she presents a suite of Moroccan songs.

[02:12:01]Oh, okay. Good evening. Um, I'm going to present three Moroccan songs, two wedding songs, and a love song. And I would like to say first of all that these songs were inspired by the upcoming wedding of Ari Marcus and Itron.

[02:12:22]So these songs are in honor of uh Ari and Itron and the parents of the bride.

[02:12:30]I know we have the groom the parents of the bride and the groom's parents Zeini and Dr. Scott Marcus. So this suite is in honor of your upcoming wedding. Two weddings and a love song. Two wedding songs and a love song. Um they're all from Morocco.

[02:12:47]Uh the first two songs are in honor of the bride. The beauty of the bride.

[02:12:54]And the first song uh the first two songs are sphartic Jewish songs from Morocco.

[02:13:02]The language is um Hakatia which is very close to Latino the Judea the Jewish Spanish that um was spoken by Jews in Spain and uh carried over to uh the Maghreb and the Ottoman Empire and um if you know Spanish if you're a native Spanish speaker the songs might sound kind of familiar like really old weird Spanish and that's what it is um so the first song arumb lumbre it's shine let her shine and it's about the radiance of the bride it's about the radiance of the bride and it says let her shine light up your fortune may this bride shine like the sun and the moon you will lose your nerves you won't be anxious and you will get a good husband Ari yes and um and The bride is so beautiful. She she's so elegant. And um the the chorus of women says, "Leave your mother and come with me." Anyway, um your groom, you and your groom will have good fortune. So that's the first song, Ar Lumbre. A lumbre, which is a sphartic Moroccan Jewish song for the bride. So I want everybody, whether you've been a bride or not, or you're a bridezilla or anti-bride, it doesn't matter. I want you to get in touch with your inner bridal radiance because this song is all about radiance and it's a polyriythmic song. So we're going to have um clapping and clackers and Moroccan rhythms. So um it's a really interesting complex rhythmic piece.

[02:15:15]Hallelujah.

[02:15:18]Hallelujah.

[02:15:20]Hallelujah.

[02:15:22]Hallelujah.

[02:15:34]Hallelujah.

[02:15:37]Hallelujah.

[02:15:39]Hallelujah.

[02:15:49]Hallelujah.

[02:15:52]Hallelujah.

[02:15:57]Hallelujah.

[02:15:59]to hle. Oh my You wonder where we Hallelujah.

[02:16:42]Hallelujah.

[02:16:44]Hallelujah.

[02:16:56]for our hallelujah.

[02:17:02]Hallelujah. Praise to you for praise.

[02:17:12]Ille Hallelujah.

[02:17:49]Hallelujah to God. Hallelujah.

[02:18:01]for you for tonight. Hallelujah.

[02:18:17]Hallelujah.

[02:18:35]They all going to rest.

[02:18:54]Hallelujah.

[02:18:58]Hallelujah.

[02:19:10]I hallelujah to you for tonight. Hallelujah.

[02:19:53]Oh, they love You know your s your Hallelujah.

[02:20:17]Hallelujah.

[02:20:30]Hallelujah.

[02:20:35]Hallelujah.

[02:20:39]Hallelujah.

[02:20:44]Hallelu to what you are.

[02:21:01]This next song is also part of um this whole genre of song of sphartic song songs for the bride contest de bodas and this is a dressing song a song that uh takes place when the bride's family and her friends are dressing her in her bridal garb and it's called Ansina Danestra. Novia and so says our bride.

[02:21:28]The first half of the song is a Moroccan version in Hakatia. The second half is Turkish and it's in Latino. So they're still in Judeo Spanish. Um and in this song the the bride's friends and her family praise the beauty of the bride and the bride responds in metaphors.

[02:21:50]And you can read the lyrics of this song. It's again about the beauty of the bride.

[02:21:59]And so says our bride I'm seen.

[02:22:55]Noia corn say I Stay alive.

[02:23:25]No heat.

[02:23:49]I' love to say I'm a and the smile day. I need I Noia noious.

[02:24:46]I compos You're so I I know.

[02:25:18]Hallelujah.

[02:25:20]Hallelujah.

[02:25:22]Hallelujah.

[02:25:43]And yes, I miss the first.

[02:26:01]No, say I'm a poker. You honey.

[02:26:25]Hello.

[02:26:29]Hello.

[02:26:31]Lo and you la and you um the last song is uh that I'm presenting it's not a song about marriage but it's a song about love, Leilon Ajib. And uh it says, "Oh, pretigious night and you're so beautiful." It's a beautiful love song.

[02:27:09]And this is uh Moroccan sa from a napa or nuba, a longer suite.

[02:27:17]and am in in uh Darja uh the Moroccan dialect of Arabic and I learned it from the glorious sphartic Jewish Moroccan singer Franis Atlan. I had been following her, listening to her CDs for like 30 years. And I had the wonderful opportunity uh to do a vocal internship with her last summer in Oxitani, France in um an abbey in uh Abby de Silvan uh in Oxitan region of France and she taught several songs. The workshop was called the sacred and profane songs of al Andeloo. And this is a song that I just absolutely fell in love with. And it's called Leon Aib.

[02:28:38]May God I La she come again.

[02:29:17]What a king I love for Oh my word.

[02:30:21]I shall.

[02:30:58]Make a She la Andrea Dr. Andre Fishman and And next we'd like to do uh we have two more dances we'd like to do for you. Um the first one is a uh one of the regional dancers of Iranian culture from the uh south west of Iran. A dance form called Bendari and Sas will be the main instrumentalist in this piece.

[02:32:11]Please welcome our dancers and soul artists.

[02:32:17]A Persian bendi dance.

[02:32:40]Heat.

[02:32:54]Heat.

[02:33:02]Heat. Heat.

[02:33:25]Heat. Heat.

[02:33:54]Heat. Heat.

[02:34:13]Heat. Heat.

[02:34:33]Heat. Heat.

[02:34:42]Heat. Heat.

[02:34:52]Heat. Heat.

[02:35:25]Heat. Heat.

[02:35:34]Heat.

[02:35:48]Heat.

[02:36:15]Heat. Heat.

[02:36:31]Heat.

[02:36:34]Heat.

[02:36:53]Heat.

[02:36:56]Heat.

[02:37:04]Heat. Heat.

[02:37:38]Heat. Heat.

[02:38:17]What? do here. Should we try this pre?

[02:38:25]>> So, um when we uh we're rehearsing today, we realized that uh we needed to separate these two dancers here because our solo dancer was just in the dance that we just had. And as I mentioned just this last Saturday, exactly a week ago, we played for the Greek church in town, the Santa Barbber Greek Church up on the hill. And uh we played a whole lot of music, but but we played a lot of uh Greek music. And we especially after the concert, they asked us to play uh music so that the community could dance.

[02:39:06]So we had all these tunes ready. And this one woman came up and said, "We especially like to danceto."

[02:39:13]So if you had some stos. So we performed two certos and quite happily we had a huge number of people from the audience get up and do this dance here. And we realized this afternoon that we needed actually to separate these two dances.

[02:39:31]One that we just performed and the solo dance that Genevieve is about to do. So, we're going to take a moment and show you a Greek s. And if any of you uh want to start dancing, this would be most wonderful. The Greek s called horups kukalimo.

[02:39:55]This was originally taught to us by the young lady over here, Vula Aldridge.

[02:40:03]Single Now she go to turkey corn.

[02:40:48]Open night. Neat.

[02:41:25]Ne.

[02:41:56]I don't know.

[02:42:11]It's gra I hope.

[02:42:58]>> So before we do our last piece, I'd like to thank all the people who worked on our printed program. So this printed program will start with Nan Naniki Nikki Capel. Nan spent hours and hours, days and days getting these lyrics together, checking with all of our language teachers to make sure everything was correctly presented.

[02:43:23]Please, please take your time, take some time to uh check out all these lyrics.

[02:43:27]As I say, uh put it on a coffee table for the next while. So and we had all these people who helped us. So with the Arabic language, Professor Magda Capo was of help helping us make it happen.

[02:43:41]Uh Ji John worked on the Farsy the Persian texts. Anna Galstanian Galian worked on the Armenian texts.

[02:43:54]uh the Moroccan texts, Eric Eder and France Atlan gave us our our Moroccan texts. So we uh thank all the people involved with this very hefty project.

[02:44:06]We are really very proud of this. It's it's quite a project. We do this every single concert. We do this for the Greek church. We're about to perform in Mendescino at a year at a yearly Mendescino music and dance camp. It's a retreat for dancers and and musicians.

[02:44:25]Many of us are teachers at the camp and we do the same idea. We we when we perform there, we give our this type of printed program. We consider it an important part of what we do. And we'd like to thank our stage managers, our RC and his crew. We'd like to thank Liliana, who you've seen come on the stage.

[02:44:46]We'd like to thank Hudson Hudson for his sound and Wes for helping out there.

[02:44:53]Um, we welcome our past members who are in the audience. We thank Kuro Shaka Kish and his wife and Juan and Meglako for the two background jobs that we have had here.

[02:45:06]This this one is from Isvahan that Kuro Shakir Kish specifically had made for the ensemble and the other one in the first half was red and green and yellow.

[02:45:17]You saw that and this uh Juan and Magda Compro brought this from Cairo. We gave them the dimensions of the stage and they had it made specifically for us. So quite a project. So we thank the two of them and I think maybe uh Genevie might be ready for us. Yes, she is.

[02:45:37]So, we'd like to do our last number. Um, when a you when a solo dancer does a performance, generally she or he or she, but mostly she's, she wants multiple sections, a multi-section piece, and generally the first piece is very fast upbeat for to bring her on. And then there's a the slow piece. And one of the things that can happen and will tonight happen in the slow piece is a veil dance where the dancer has a very large length of fabric and she does a veil dance.

[02:46:13]Then one of the things that happens is we ask a solo instrumentalist to play an extended solo called a takasim and Jim Grio will do that. And then it's very common for the dancer to request a drum solo. So, Zead Marcus has gotten together with his drum section to give us a very special drum solo. I think you'll you'll uh what's what's the expression about knocking your socks off? Yeah. Hold on to your socks as he starts his uh his drum solo there. And then we conclude.

[02:46:48]So, this is a it's a five-part dance.

[02:46:50]Very very common for dancers to present five-part dance solos. Please welcome Genevieve. This is a a real treat, a real treat for all of us to be working with Genevie. Please welcome Genevie.

[02:47:05]And uh Alexis will be our first uh singer here. Our chorus will also sing, but please welcome Alexis as we start with a Greek song.

[02:47:33]Can you please make sure uh Hen that Alexis's volume is up? Thank you.

[02:47:59]She know your man.

[02:48:16]We know you know your Me.

[02:49:12]Don't you Glory That's my heat. You talk about Lord about your Jesus.

[02:50:52]Heat.

[02:51:10]Heat.

[02:51:16]Glory.

[02:51:43]Oh You might be worship. Sh.

[02:52:59]Awesome.

[02:53:10]Oh, heat, heat.

[02:53:43]Heat.

[02:53:50]Heat.

[02:56:09]Heat. Heat.

[02:56:27]All right, Heat. Heat. N.

[02:57:04]Yeah.

[02:57:25]Heat.

[02:57:30]Heat. Heat.

[02:57:51]Heat.

[02:58:01]Heat.

[02:58:11]Heat. Heat. N.

[02:58:58]Heat. Heat.

[02:59:08]Heat. Heat. N.

[02:59:18]Heat. Heat. N.

[02:59:42]Heat.

[02:59:50]Heat.

[02:59:54]Heat.

[03:00:05]Heat.

[03:00:27]Yeah.

[03:00:37]Heat.

[03:00:41]Oh, heat, heat. Oh my god.

[03:01:39]Heat. Heat. Heat.

[03:01:49]Heat. Heat.

[03:02:01]Heat. Heat.

[03:02:20]Jeremy J.

[03:02:24]Amazing Jeremy.

[03:02:39]Yeah.

[03:02:44]Nobody.

[03:03:17]We thank you. We thank you all for hanging with us till the end here.

[03:03:23]We thank you. We'd like to go around and thank the ensemble. We'd like to thank our oud people here. Oo.

[03:03:31]All our people and our s our s play players, our canoe players, our cello, our violin and our night players, our accordion collar and our chorus people. Who is our chorus people? Polish people.

[03:04:03]We'd like to thank our frame drummers and our tumbler players.

[03:04:11]We'd like to thank Zad and Nan for leading our percussion section. Nan and Zed, Zed and Nan. We'd like to thank our instrumental soloist with Eric, Eric Edgar, Jim Griffo, and Soulm Sol and Zad on his drum solo here.

[03:04:36]We'd like to thank our vocal soloists, Devin.

[03:04:40]Devin and Paul and Alexis.

[03:04:46]Alexis and Eric Vasopropian. Eric and Dr. Andrea. Dr. Andrea.

[03:04:55]We'd love to thank our dancers. If we can bring out our Kala dancers, Jazelle.

[03:05:02]Jazelle. Jazelle, are you here?

[03:05:08]Is Jazelle here?

[03:05:10]Here she comes. You, Jazelle.

[03:05:14]Amazing. And McKenzie and along with them, Alexis.

[03:05:26]This was the El Kanda dance we had at the beginning.

[03:05:31]And Alexis. And we'd like to thank our company dancers again. Alexis, Alexis, and Juliet. Juliet.

[03:05:45]Oh, you you and Sage. Sage and Gavin. Gavin. Gavin. Gavin.

[03:06:03]And our fabulous solo dancer, Genevie.

[03:06:07]Genevie.

[03:06:11]our fabulous dancer, Genevie.

[03:06:14]Genevie.

[03:06:17]And finally, we'd like to thank Alexandra King, the choreographer of two of our dancers, our dance teacher and the director of our dance company.

[03:06:34]>> And most importantly, we'd like to thank our director, Dr. Scott Marcus.

[03:06:52]You know, we already know when we're coming back because it's scheduled by the department. It's Saturday, November 21st in the hall. If you want to write that down. Thank you very much.

[03:07:05]>> Looking for dancers. We have classes on campus. I teach them dancing, belly dancing.

[03:07:28]>> We thank you.

[03:08:24]Hallelujah.

[03:08:49]How are you?

[03:09:36]What was that?

[03:09:54]How are you doing?