UNITY IN DIVERSITY 24 – DORSAF HAMDANI (TUNESIEN)

In the organizer's words:

Dorsaf Hamdani is considered one of Tunisia's greatest voices today. She embodies the changes of the modern Mediterranean, is proud of her multiculturalism and is always in search of artistic truth. She studied Malouf, the Arab-Andalusian music of Tunisia as well as semi-classical genres that emerged in the Middle East in the 20th century. She learned Western music theory and experimented with fusion music - and received countless awards in Tunisia and abroad.

Dorsaf Hamdani was born in 1975 as the daughter of a violinist in the Tunisian capital Tunis. She received singing lessons at the National Conservatory of Music in Tunis from the age of ten. She completed her studies in Tunis in 1995 and 2000 at the Sorbonne/Paris with a master's degree in musicology and later a doctorate. Since 1995, she has also participated as a singer in Malouf concerts, the Tunisian version of classical Arab-Andalusian music. She has sung at the Cairo Opera and worked with the greatest artists in Arabic music. In Paris, she met many musicians from different backgrounds and expanded her musical universe.

Her first CD recording in 2005 on the Greek label En Chordais with the Takht Musical Ensemble from Tunis under the direction of Kamel Ferjani is a tribute to the most famous Tunisian Malouf composer Khmayyis Tarnan (1894 -1964), with whom she expresses her deep connection to her culture. In 2010, Dorsaf Hamdani took part in a daring project with the Iranian singer Ali Reza Ghorbani: a homage to the Sufi poet Omar Khayyam in a dialog between Persian and Arabic song.

In 2011, she released a very personal album on which she interpreted selected songs by three great divas from the Middle East: Oum Kalthoum from Egypt, Asmahan from Syria and Fairouz from Lebanon. With a small, classical ensemble of oud, qanun, violin, ney, tar and derbouka, she brings these classics back to life. Dorsaf says of this program: "It was a team effort, as it took a joint effort to make this music something new. My idea was not to simply sing cover versions of these songs, but to create something new from existing material. We moved so far away from the original material that the essence was exposed to create a new color.

In 2012, she collaborated with Iranian percussionist Keyvan Chemirani to create the CD Melos, a musical journey through the musical traditions of the Mediterranean, from Malouf to flamenco and Byzantine music. In 2013, with the support of the French Cultural Institute in Tunis and Sfax, she presented a tribute to the Lebanese singer Fairouz and the French chansonnière Barbara: six songs by Barbara and six songs by Fairouz, rearranged for her by Daniel Mille. She released this repertoire in 2014 as the album Barbara/Fairouz.

Her mission is to make a contribution against the current identity crisis in the Arab world with its means and possibilities: through the musical rediscovery of cultural roots and the strengthening of the young music scene in Tunisia as founding director of the festival 'Les Journées Musicales de Carthage'.

Dorsaf Hamdani - Vocals
n.n. - oud

Price information:

Price VVK: 18,00 € Price B.O.: 20,00 € reduced (pupils, students, basic income) Reservation please by mail to suedstadt.leben@koeln.de: 15,00 €.