Mohammed Antar and Oriental Secrets Ensemble
Oriental Breeze
Contemporary light traditional middle-eastern style compositions performed by a typical Arab Musical Ensemble.
• Mohammed Antar, (1978-), Egyptian Musician, Ney player and conductor of Ensemble Munajah for Meditative and Mystic music and Oriental Secrets Ensemble for light music. Having mastered the three major Ney schools, Arab, Turkish and Persian, as well as his understanding of the middle-eastern musical theory enabled him to set a variety of meditative and light instrumental and vocal compositions with mixed characteristics taken from these rich musical traditions. He released a couple of improvisational solo Ney albums the first of which is entitled In Mawlana’s Presence in 2007 (Digital Only), and the second is entitled The Arab Maqam in 2008 (Eka3 Productions), and he recorded in a number of albums most of which contain one or more of his compositions. He also participates in national and international musical conferences, symposiums, lectures and conducts musical workshops. Antar presents his compositions and his adaptations of middle-eastern pieces in solo Ney concerts, with percussion, with his groups or through other musical projects in which he participates inside and outside Egypt. His compositions mostly come in typical Middle-eastern forms with a sort of modernisation in the melodies and the forms taken from the origin giving a free space for improvisation.
Oriental Secrets Ensemble was founded in 2007 mainly to perform Mohammed Antar’s traditional light musical compositions which have different musical characteristics that makes it unsuitable to be performed by Antar's other projects. Despite the fact that the traditional Arab music Fasil form is not adopted in the presentation of this kind of music, still there are characteristics of this form which is noticeable in the instrumental free and rhythmic improvisation as well as the respective presentation of the pieces with similar or related Maqams. A number of these compositions is even presented within typical Fasils in Antar’s other musical projects. The group consists of the following performers:
• Amru Sobhi, (Cello): Egyptian oriental Cellist and Rababa player.
• Ayman Mabrouk, (Middle-Eastern Percussion): Egyptian Oriental and Western percussionist.
• Karim Sami, (Oud): Egyptian Oud player and teacher.
• Medhat Al-Wardani, (Middle-Eastern Percussion): Egyptian Oriental Percussionist specialised in the typical Egyptian rhythmic instruments.
• Mohammed Antar, Egyptian Ney player (See Above).
• Mohammed Sami, (Kaman or Oriental Violin): Egyptian violinist and composer.
• Omar Ziyad, (Qanoun): Iraqi Qanoun player and Qanoun teacher.
• Wael Al-Sayyid, (Middle-Eastern Percussion): Egyptian oriental accordionist, percussionist and composer.
Oriental Breeze is an idea through which Antar presents twelve of his compositions with different ideology and structure in addition to five free instrumental improvisations. Through his compositions, Antar introduces Maqams and Rhythms uncommon in Arab music and sometimes, he presents Maqam and rhythm structures which have no proof of previous existence in the middle-eastern music. Though the album is not played in Fasil form, still each group of tracks represent one of the Arab music Maqam families dividing the album into four imaginary parts: Dugah family, Rast family, Hijaz Family and Nahawand Family with a total of seventeen tracks arranged as follows:
• Track 01, Sirto, Maqam Ushshaq, composed in Eskisehir/Turkey.
• Track 02, Anatolia, Maqam Qarjighar, composed following a tour in Turkey. It contains a Oud improvisation.
• Track 03, a solo Ney improvisation from Qarjighar to Ushshaq.
• Track 04, Egyptian Dance, Maqam Ushshaq, originally composed as a sound track. It contains a violin improvisation.
• Track 05, Conclusion, Maqam Bayyati Al-Husseini, composed in Beirut/Lebanon by the end of a visit.
• Track 06, Introduction, Maqam Suznak-Rast, typically traditional Egyptian piece composed in an Egyptian Café.
• Track 06, solo Oud improvisation, Maqam Rast.
• Track 08, 9th of April, Maqam Rast, composed in memory of the fall of Baghdad.
• Track 09, Solo cello improvisation, Maqam Panjgah.
• Track 10, Oyun Havasi, Maqam Panjgah, originally composed in Istanbul/Turkey, and completed in Marsa-Matrouh/Egypt. It contains Ney and Cello improvisations.
• Track 11, Andalusiyya, Maqam Hijaz, composed in memory of Andalusia with a Ney improvisation.
• Track 12, A solo Ney improvisation, Maqam Hijaz.
• Track 13, Oyun Havasi, Maqam Hijaz, composed in Baku/Azerbaijan in memory of the Middle-Eastern original culture.
• Track 14, Introduction, Maqam Nahawand, an emotional piece.
• Track 15, A solo Qanoun Improvisation, Maqam Nahawand.
• Track 16, Oriental Breeze, Maqam Nahawand, composed after a concert in a breezy Alexandrian evening on the Mediterranean.
• Track 17, Longa, Maqam Nekriz, composed following a crowded Cairo day.
All the recorded pieces are composed by Mohammed Antar.
Recorded in Studio-32, Cairo, Egypt on 04 and 05 August 2009. Tracks 3 and 7 were recorded in Hosanna Studio, Cairo, Egypt on 19 August 2009.
Engineered, Mixed and Mastered by Hussein Sami.
This album was produced with a grant from the Culture Resource Organisation in the framework of remix plus.
Distributed by Eka3 Productions.
World: Middle East Traditional