Text by Jim Hoey

Date: Saturday, February 12, 2011
Time: 8 pm
Venue: Peter Jay Sharp Theatre /Symphony Space (2537 Broadway at 95th Street, New York, NY 10025-6990)
Tickets: $25; Members, Students, Seniors, Children $20; Day of Show $30 – buy tickets
Genre: Arabic tradtional music

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Just as protests around the Arabic world are gaining momentum and causing real change in nations like Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen, the internationally acclaimed New York Arabic Orchestra returns to Symphony Space for its annual winter event.

Presenting an all new repertoire of classical, contemporary and popular Arabic vocal music, Bassam Saba leads the thirty-member ensemble, comprised of ouds (Arabic lutes), nays (Arabic reed flutes), the qanun (Arabic zither), Arabic percussion, strings, woodwinds and chorus. The evening features the orchestra’s principal vocalists, Salma Habib and Naji Youssef, the breathtaking Arabic voices of New York.

Saba, regarded as one of the few greatest nay players in the world, graces the stage with his passion and mastery upon a myriad of instruments, including the oud, violin and Western flute. In his distinguished thirty-year career as a performer and educator, Saba has collaborated with artists such as Fairouz (the diva of Lebanon), Marcel Khalife, Simon Shaheen, Sting and Yo-Yo Ma.

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Note: DooBeeDoo’s attending this concert, and expect a concert review with a Saba interview!