The Whole Music Experience

Le Trio Joubran As Far (Asfar) World Village In 2008 I interviewed Wissam Joubran for an arts and entertainment publication in Washington State and I felt deeply moved by his story.   I was scheduled to attend a Le Trio Joubran concert, but in the end I missed the concert.   This was a real shame because the Palestinian oud-playing brothers’ performance on their studio and live recordings prove nothing short of mesmerizing, even flawless.   The brothers don’t just deliver seamless performances (imagine three ouds in sync or playing counter melodies), they perform with their hearts dangling on their sleeves and in a live DVD that I watched, trails of tears on their faces.   Granted, even though the musicians are blessed with an incredible musical gift and hail from a lineage of oud players, Palestinian life is rife with tragedies. So the musicians have a huge palette in which to draw from when composing and performing music.   At times the music ...

Le Trio Joubran À l’ombre de mots World Village In 2008 I had the great pleasure of interviewing Le Trio Joubran for an arts supplement article. Unfortunately I missed the trio’s concert at Western Washington University, though I was told that the musicians performed for a receptive audience. The Palestinian oud-playing brothers compose and play seamless pieces performed on ouds crafted by their own hands. The music wraps sublime, melancholic, and fiery emotions into its own poetic expression. But mostly, this recording with its CD and DVD (same program) provides a requiem for a favorite Arab poet. You can see those ouds and the brothers’ passionate performance on the DVD portion of À l’ombre de mots , which features a concert commemorating the death of the renowned Palestinian poet and activist Mahmoud Darwhich (Darwash). And in fact, the late poet’s voice appears ghostlike reciting his poetry along with the oud compositions. The camera zooms across the musician’s faces, s...

Le Trio Joubran Majaz Randana/Harmonia Mundi The Joubran brothers, Samir, Wissam, and Adnan all deftly play the Arabic oud. Palestinian by birth, but sporting Israeli citizenship, it's challenging to fathom that the beautiful music flowing from the newest disc, Majaz , hails from a place of turmoil. In recent news, we read that the Israeli government placed another stranglehold on the Palestinians living in Gaza, and now many Palestinians seek refuge in Egypt, causing an already overheated Middle Eastern situation to boil over while the rest of the world watches helplessly. It's hard not to think of this political situation when listening to the three brothers play their ouds. These are young men who hail from a long lineage of Palestinian traditional musicians and instrument makers, and in fact, the middle brother, Wissam not only composes and joins his other two brothers on oud, but he also crafts the instruments. While performance of a 3-oud ensemble brings a contempor...