Rabih Abou-Khalil Trio

His CDs are top-class highlights in the collections of numerous music lovers, true style icons - both musical and visual! His concerts are magnificent, highly virtuosic, world music highlights of countless festivals and concert tours. After a long wait, his CD “The Flood and the Fate of the Fish” has just been released by enja records.

Rabih Abou-Khalil is a border crosser between the worlds of traditional Arabic music and European classical music to open jazz. Like a wanderer between cultures, the Oud virtuoso and composer, who was born in Lebanon and now lives in France after a long stay in Germany, combines Arabic, European and American music into a highly intelligent melange, far away from any world music fashions. Unbiased, with an alert mind, a high level of playing and compositional competence and a good dose of humor, he succeeds in merging the often contradictory worlds in an extraordinary way. He also gathered around him big names from the world of jazz such as Charlie Mariano, Kenny Wheeler and Joachim Kühn, but also classics: the Ensemble Modern, the Balanescu Quartet, the Kronos Quartet and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. His work is so successful that he was awarded the Jazz Award five times in one year; In 2002 he received an honorary certificate from the German Record Critics' Prize for his entire work.

His complex compositions combine Arabic meters and tone scales as well as distinctive improvisations. The result is fresh music, fascinatingly complex, thrillingly virtuoso, highly sensual.

Program and cast

Rabih Abou-Khalil: oud
Jarrod Cagwin: drums, percussion
Mateusz Smoczynski: violin