Founded over 20 years ago, Quadro Nuevo is a groundbreaking and successful German world music ensemble, woodwind player Mulo Francel, bassist and percussionist Dietmar Lowka, accordionist Andreas Hinterseher and harpist Evelyn Huber track down authentic sounds and magnetic melodies all over the world, catch them and hang them into their own musical frame of reference - always respectfully inspired by foreign cultures, their people and myths. Their latest project with world music colleagues Cairo Steps, entitled "Flying Carpet" explores Egyptian Sufi-Music is set to hit U.S. market on September 15, 2017 with Justin Time Records.
Jazz pianist and co-founder of Cairo Steps Matthias Frey, an old acquaintance of the
Southern German quartet proposed a meeting. Even though the band has been in existence only for a couple of years, it is already one of the most renowned intercultural ensembles in Germany - and one of the most successful bands in Egypt. At the crossroads of the Sufi sound culture with jazz and world music, they are joined by
Sebastian Müller-Schrobsdorff on the piano (also arranger and musical director), Max Klaas on percussion, Stefan Hergenröder on the bass and the Iraqi Nay and Duduk player Rageed William.
The Egyptian Oud player Basem Darwisch, the other founding father beside Frey, was part of outstanding Egyptian bands like D'u Nil, Salamat, Abdel Radi (with Mohamed Mounir), Rahalat (with Hussam Shakir) or Sharkiat (with Grammy winner Fathy Salama), and has lived in Germany since the early 1990s. He worked with the literary Nobel laureate Günther Grass and the Klezmer revolutionary David Orlowsky and is considered the most important ambassador of Egyptian music in Germany.
In January 2017 Quadro Nuevo and Cairo Steps travelled to Egypt. In Cairo, Alexandria and Damanhour, the newly amalgamated, daring group of full-blooded musicians from Cairo and Cologne, Baghdad and Bavaria gave three concerts, which included a number of Egyptian guests: the Sufi singer Ali El Helwabi and Sheikh Ehab Younis, for example, the flutist (and director of the Cairo Opera Cultural Center) Ines Abdeldaiem, Ragy Kamal on the Arabic string instrument Kanun, Hani Alsawaf on the Tabla, and a four-piece string quartet lead by cellist Jan Boshra.
The compositions, mostly written by Mulo Francel and Basem Darwisch are an exotic, inspiring and enthralling sound experience. Songs such as "Shams" (Darwisch's homage to the sun) or "Ikarus' Dream" (a Greek inspired impression by Francel), or "Café Cairo," which was dreamt up by Andreas Hinterseher before the journey, crossing oriental music with Viennese coffeehouse waltzes or Darwisch's "Arabiskan," commenting on recent historical events in Egypt and connecting orient and Occident.
Evelyn Huber's surging and hymnic "Nilade" and Mulo Francel's cheerfully swinging "Symphony for the Sheikh" originated at the end of the Egypt trip and are audibly inspired by the travel impressions and the encounter with the Egyptian culture. Their impressive version of Eric Satie's "Gnossienne No. 2 is garnished with arabesque quarter-tones and smearing transitions, then bursts into symphonic force and finally blends with the magical, freely phrased "Arab blues" with the overwhelming voice of the blind sheikh Ehab Younis - this will touch every listener deeply and immediately. Suddenly the Parisian salon of the twenties seems to be lying opposite the Egyptian shisha bar and a Bavarian pub. One is able to comprehend, that playing music together can overcome the biggest hurdles.
Unanimously, the musicians also emphasize: "Although we come from different cultural spaces, we stand on the stage with full respect for each other as friends: We have the vision to build a bridge between the Occident and the Orient with our emerging music. Beyond the boundaries of time, politics or religion."
Check out these videos:
"Flying Carpet" (Making Of)
Ikarus Dream
"Flying Carpet" - Official Video
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