This is a matrix in the original sense of "source". It is a "small-world" network, meaning that the nodes (people) inside it are — mirroring human society — within a few steps of everybody else inside it. The matrix was built to allow regional Brazilian musicians to be discoverable steps away from everybody else in the arts world, and by logical necessity this m.o. requires not only that the great Brazilians be matrixed, but so far as possible, all working artists in our time. Ergo:
THIS MATRIX, THOUGH BRAZIL-BORN, IS UNIVERSAL
This Simon Shaheen matrix node is steps away from the entire planet by the well-known small-world ("6 degrees") phenomenon dictating that in human society you yourself are within several degrees of Simon Shaheen.
1 DEGREE FORWARD: Simon Shaheen (node) ROUTES TO THESE ARTIST NODES
Are these Simon Shaheen's personal recommendations?
CURATION STATUS
- → Routes by The Matrix
Who & Where
- Name: Simon Shaheen
- City/Place: New York City
- Country: United States
Life & Work
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Bio:
A Palestinian, born in the village of Tarshiha in the Galilee, Shaheen's childhood was steeped in music. His father, Hikmat Shaheen, was a professor of music and a master 'oud player. "Learning to play on the 'oud from my father was the most powerful influence in my musical life," Shaheen recalls. He began playing on the 'oud at the age of five, and a year later studying violin at the Conservatory for Western Classical Music in Jerusalem. "When I held and played these instruments, they felt like an extension of my arms."
After graduating from the Academy of Music in Jerusalem in 1978, Shaheen was appointed its instructor of Arab music, performance, and theory. Two years later he moved to New York City to complete his graduate studies in performance at the Manhattan School of Music, and later in performance and music education at Columbia University.
In 1982, Shaheen formed the Near Eastern Music Ensemble in New York, establishing a group that would perform the highest standard of traditional Arab music. This time also marked the beginning of Shaheen's workshops and lecture/demonstrations in schools, colleges, and universities to educate the younger generation. As a champion and guardian of Arab music, Shaheen still devotes almost fifty percent of his time to working with schools and universities, including Julliard, Columbia, Princeton, Brown, Harvard, Yale, University of California in San Diego, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and many others.
His concert credits are a veritable compendium of the world's greatest venues: Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Cairo's Opera House, Theatre de la Ville in Beirut, and Belgium's Le Palais des Arts. In May of 2004, Shaheen appeared at Quincy Jones' "We Are The Future," fundraising concert in Rome in front of a half million strong crowd.
As a composer, Shaheen has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, Meet the Composer, the Jerome Foundation, Continental Harmony, and Yellow Springs Institute. In addition to his recorded work, his theatrical repertoire includes Majnun Layla, (performances included the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, and The Museum of Natural History in New York), The Book and the Stranger (from Kalilah Wa-Dimanah), Possible City, and Collateral Damage with actress Vanessa Redgrave. He has also written the music for the documentary of the British Museum's Egyptian collection, which has toured U.S. museums.
Since 1994, Shaheen has produced the Annual Arab Festival of Arts, called "Mahrajan al-Fan." Held in New York, the festival showcases the work of the finest Arab artists, while presenting the scope, depth and quality of Arab culture. To continue this exposure to Arab music and culture, Shaheen founded the Annual Arabic Music Retreat in 1997. Held each summer at Mount Holyoke College, this weeklong intensive program of Arabic music studies draws participants from the U.S. and abroad.
For the past six years, though, Shaheen has focused much of his energies on Qantara . The band, whose name means arch in Arabic, brings to life Shaheen's vision for the unbridled fusion of Arab, jazz, Western classical, and Latin American music, a perfect alchemy for music to transcend the boundaries of genre and geography.
"I want to create a world music exceptionally satisfying to the ear and for the soul," says Shaheen, "This is why I selected members for Qantara who are all virtuosos in their own musical forms, and whose expertise and knowledge can raise the music and the group's performance to spectacular levels."
Qantara made their first live recording debut on Mondo Melodia/ARK21's "Historic Live Recording of the Two Tenors & Qantara ," featuring tenors Wadi al-Safi and Sabah Fahkri. The disc featured two instrumental cuts by Shaheen and Qantara, which, only begins to show the band's range and capabilities ."
Shaheen and Qantara made their full recording debut with Blue Flame, . Compositions of "Al-Qantara" and "Dance Mediterranea" sparkle like jewels, while the opening track, Blue Flame, is a bravura exhibition of Shaheen's -- and the band's -- virtuosity. The Los Angeles Times proclaimed the record "stunning," National Public Radio called it "a staggering tour-de-force of technique and passion," CMJ called it "a new benchmark in Arab-Western fusion," and the Washington Post termed it "eminently cosmopolitan."
The band has toured during 2003 and 2004, playing concerts and festivals like WOMAD USA, WOMAD Sicily, the prestigious Newport Jazz Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival. Traveling throughout Europe and the Middle East, Qantara's appearances have included: Beiteddine Festival in Lebanon; Les Mediterranean in France; New York's Central Park Summer Stage; Stern Grove International Festival in San Francisco; Chicago World Music Festival; Royce Hall in Los Angeles; University Musical Society in Ann Arbor; Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis; International Souk Ukaz at the historic citadel in Amman, Jordan; and Yabous Festival in the historical Tombs of Kings in East Jerusalem amongst others . In Palestine, Shaheen conducts an annual weeklong music workshop designed for gifted children.
In addition to performing with his two bands, Qantara and the Near Eastern Music Ensemble, Shaheen tours as a solo artist internationally and as a lecturer throughout the academic world promoting awareness to Arab music through numerous lecture and workshop presentations.
Media & Markets
- ▶ Buy My Music (downloads/CDs/DVDs): http://www.simonshaheen.com/order
- ▶ Twitter: oudandviolin
- ▶ Website: http://www.simonshaheen.com
- ▶ YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/SimonShaheen
- ▶ YouTube Music: http://music.youtube.com/channel/UCs1RE_8nV1VtLKo7KZNlsTw
- ▶ Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/01cMpGepKd4bWFzJse5mIb
- ▶ Spotify 2: http://open.spotify.com/album/1aT4FV3ooindbWj4DmSjPi
- ▶ Spotify 3: http://open.spotify.com/album/27wsda7v84WVk8dxfSNT2s
Clips (more may be added)
THE MATRIX WAS BUILT HERE, inspired in (the kabbalah-inspired fiction of) Borges' El Aleph, that in the pillar in Cairo's Mosque of Amr, where the universe in its entirety throughout all time is perceivable as an infinite hum from deep within the stone... The Brazilian "aleph" doesn't hum...it sings!
Sprawled across broad equatorial latitudes
Stoked and steamed and sensual in the widest sense of the word
Limned in prosody and cadenced song
brəˈzɪl / from "brasa" / Latin for "ember"
w/ David Dye for U.S. National Public Radio
Given the immense untapped power of the small-world phenomenon, from Brazilians the matrix was expanded to include nodes per jazz artists, given jazz's common roots with Brazilian music (nodes based in publicly available information; some artists we informed — Bob Mintzer, Kamasi Washington, David "Fuse" Fiuczynski, Vijay Iyer, Greg Osby — and got thumbs up, others we'll get to), and moved on from there. Artists/academics/"creative people" are welcome to create their own nodes and curate (connect to other artist nodes, so that others may follow). BTW, our logo is a cortador de cana, cane cutter. It was designed by Walter Mariano, professor of design at the Federal University of Bahia to reflect the origins of the music the shop specializes in.
MUCH MORE on all of this in the window below (which, if you are logged in, will instead contain instructions on recommending), and in the window within that window (which includes a "radio" called by The Guardian one of "10 of the best music radio stations around the world"):
