Matrimia

The charming taraf (band) born in 2003, composed by Dutch, French and Sicilian musicians, takes inspiration from Klezmer and Balkan tradition with its joyful mélange of instruments: a manouche guitar, a buzuki, a clarinet, a dense and accurate Drum n’ Bass rhythmic section, a very enthralling accordionist. End the maître of the ceremony, the voice of the French vocalist Davy, who sings in 100 different languages.
Since its line-up formation, in 2005, the band has opened for internationally acclaimed artists including Naat Veliov & The Original Kocani Orchestar, Giovanni Sollima, Roy Paci & Aretuska, Shantel, Eugenio Bennato, it has gone on several tours in Italy, France, and Belgium and it has played at international festival such as the Sete Sois Sete Luas in Greek, the “Festival d’Avignon” and the Wa-Zen in Lille.

Saturday Julie 24th 2010, 22.45
Complesso Monumentale di Sant’Anna, Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Palermo

 
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Karim Said

Karim Said, musician of Palestinian origins born in Amman in 1988, has played the piano since he was five, studying with composer and pianist Agnes Bashir. At eight he gave his first solo recital, and two years later, he played Mozart’s Concerto in C major K467 with orchestra. In September 2000 he enrolled with a scholarship at London’s Purcell School of Music where he studied with Tatiana Sarkissova and Tessa Nicholson. One of the best pupils of the Purcell School of London, Karim is Daniel Barenboim’s piano prodigy and he has grown up in the West Eastern Divan Orchestra, founded by Barenboim and Edward Said in 1999 and composed by young Arab and Israeli musicians. In spite of his young age (he started playing with Barenboim at 11) his maestro considers him as a ‘veteran’. He said: ‘what you can’t learn, he knows already.’
In 2007, Karim was awarded a full scholarship to continue his studies with Sarkissova at London’s Royal Academy of Music.
He has performed in over twenty countries across Europe, the Middle and Far East at such venues as Manchester’s ‘Bridgewater’ Hall, London’s ‘Barbican’ Centre and Royal Albert Hall, The Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory and Seoul’s Jangcheon Art Hall. In addition to his collaboration as soloist with the West–Eastern Divan Orchestra and Daniel Barenboim, he has also recently worked with the English Chamber Orchestra under Sir Colin Davis.

In 2008, British director Christopher Nupen made the film “Karim’s Journey”, about the training of Karim Said as a pianist, compositor and orchestra director during seven years since he was 11. This film, showed in the third edition of Sole luna Festival, was awarded the Jury Prize. The Association Sole Luna, A bridge between cultures invited Karim to perform in Palermo and that night his performance enchanted one thousand people. In that occasion, Karim told us he considered that concert his real debut, his first solo performance without Barenboim.
Just in one year and after a series of successes, Karim gained audience and critical approval in August 2009 at the Royal Albert Hall concert, in London, in front of six thousands people.

Karim Said will inaugurate the fifth edition of Sole Luna Festival performing on July 18th 2010.

Awards:
First prize at the ‘Pro Piano International Competition’ (Bucharest, Romania)
Second prize and ‘Special Audience Award’ at the ‘Gradus ad Parnassum International Competition’ (Kaunas, Lithuania),
Best Performance of a 20th Century Work and ‘Special Audience’ prizes at the ‘Junior Franz Liszt
International Competition’ (Weimar, Germany),
Second prize at the Beethoven Intercollegiate Piano Competition (London, UK),
The Howard Craxton Chamber Music Prize (London, 2010)
The Harriet Cohen Bach Prize (London, 2010)
First ‘Enescu Prize’ (presented by the Romanian Cultural Institute in London, 2009)