The MEME Arab Concert - A Conversation with Sophia Uddin

Sophia Uddin

     This coming Sunday, May 27, the Middle Eastern Music Ensemble (MEME) of the University will present The Arab Concert. This concert marks the end of the 20th Anniversary of this wonderful ensemble. The concert begins at 6 pm in the concert hall of at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts located at 915 E. 60th Street in Chicago. Come and listen to our amazing ensemble for 40+ musician present classical, folk, and popular selections from the vast Arab repertoire. If you are remotely interested in this genre, this is not a concert to be missed.

     There are myriad benefits of playing in the Middle Eastern Music Ensemble of the University of Chicago. One of them is hearing the exceptional talents of a few musicians. For example, our maestro, Wanees Zarour, is an unbelievable composer, arranger, and musician who is accomplished and world-class on several instruments from violin to oud to bouzouk. Where he really shines, in my humble view, is on the def, the tambourine popular in Arab and Turkish music. He dazzles me with the way he makes that thing talk. His articulation, timing, and ornamentation surpass what I imagine, and I have a pretty good imagination. He also makes it all look so… effortless and natural. 

Jim Stoynoff

     Another favorite of mine is Jim Stoynoff. He is a clarinet master. He is a fixture of Greek, Macedonian, Balkan, Turkish, and other Middle Eastern genres in Chicago for sure and around the US. He is an honorary member of MEME for his talent, years of dedication, being a friend and mentor to all, and his exceptional knowledge of Makam Theory which he has made a lifelong study. Certainly, I love to hear Jim’s taksims introducing various pieces and his improvisations in the pieces during the practices and concerts. But, a bonus for me, is simply hearing Jim warm up before practice. I often find myself stopping my tuning and warming up simply to listen to Jim… in awe and admiration. As we practice around 27 times throughout the academic year, I get to hang out with and hear Jim that many times. 
     Jim and Wanees were born listening to this music.  I believe that for some of us the appreciation of and dedication to this music is in our very DNA. In MEME, I am truly impressed with the musicians that do not come from the heritage and only got into it because of MEME. The third musician, to whom this piece is truly dedicated, is Sophia Uddin, a superb violinist and our concertmaster. She is truly amazing in all three concerts: Turkish, Persian, and Arab. To me, however she shines the most in the Arab concert. When Wanees asks her to demonstrate a passage for the rest of the strings, I actually think she has played with orchestras in Beirut, Damascus, or Cairo her entire life. Her feel, interpretation, and style simply amazes me. 
     I had the opportunity to chat a bit with Sophia and ask her a few questions:

What this music means to you?
Because I didn't really play any Middle Eastern music until a few years ago, I don't have any long-ago memories associated with it. However, since joining MEME in 2013, this music has come to occupy a special place in my heart. Because I grew up playing almost exclusively Western classical music, Middle Eastern music presents a total paradigm shift. It's a way for me to challenge myself on the violin and as a musician (for example, learning to hear whether half-flats are in tune, and learning to produce them on the violin...or learning to play in a G-D-G-D tuning rather than G-D-A-E).

I also love the sense of community from playing Middle Eastern music. When I joined MEME, I noticed two things. First, I noticed how friendly everyone is with one another. Second, I noticed how Wanees is not the "orchestra conductor" in the Western symphony orchestra sense; he's never standing up front with a baton during our shows. It's a very different approach to musical hierarchy than I grew up with, and I love that. Rather than being told exactly what to do in every measure of the music, we're thrown into a situation where novices, masters, and everyone in between play the same music together. This gives the newcomers (like me!) the opportunity to learn organically from the masters.

Finally, especially in today's political climate, I am especially glad to be playing Middle Eastern music, because for me it is a way of showing support and love to cultures that are discriminated against in the US right now. It's easy to feel pessimistic about where the US is headed currently, but it helps cheer me up to remember that this is still a place where a descendant of Oregon trail pioneers and Muslims from the Indian subcontinent (i.e., me) can spend every Thursday playing Middle Eastern music with amazing people from all over the world.

What has being part of MEME meant to you?
Being part of MEME has been wonderful! It's a friendly, welcoming environment and has become a cherished group of friends. Back in 2013 when I joined, I was new to Chicago, and didn't know very many people around the city. The lovely people in MEME were among the first who made me feel at home in a new city.

MEME is also a great way to give my brain a break from studying. I'm in the U Chicago MSTP which means I spend a lot of time reading papers, writing, and memorizing things. It is wonderful to have one protected night a week where I can forget about all that and just play music.

How you got into playing this music?
Honestly, before joining MEME I didn't play any Arab, Turkish, or Persian music! The closest I came was a folk music ensemble I was in for a couple years as a kid. We played lots of Irish and bluegrass fiddle music, as well as a couple Balkan and Klezmer songs. My parents had a couple world music CDs that we'd listen to as kids, and those had a couple Egyptian songs on them if I recall correctly, but the first time I learned to play this music was when I joined MEME.

What brought you to MEME?
When I showed up in Chicago to start my program at U of C, I didn't know anyone in Chicago and I didn't know about MEME, but I had been playing violin in chamber groups and orchestras since high school. I knew I wanted to continue playing, but after beyond-wonderful experiences playing in chamber groups and the school orchestra at Swarthmore college, everything else felt like a letdown. My quartet in college used to practice ~10 hours a week so that we could focus on thorny, dissonant music like Schoenberg and Bartók, and I couldn't envision building something like that from the ground up again with entirely new people. I decided I needed a total genre change, and I found out about MEME just by scrolling through the U of C website that describes all the ensembles. I showed up at the first practice of the quarter for the 2013 Turkish Concert, and after that I was hooked. 

MEME performs three concerts a year: Turkish, Persian, and Arab. How do you relate to these different styles and genres?
Given that I have no background in any of these traditions, they all seem equally new to me although quite distinct from each other. I suppose the Persian music seems a little closer to the Western music I grew up with because of the harmonies, but they all have their own challenges.

I found your website... tell me a bit about the music you compose.
I've been composing for a long time, but the first time I had any formal instruction in it was in college, where I was lucky enough to study with Gerald Levinson who was one of Olivier Messiaen's students. In college I wrote a lot of typical "Western art music" - atonal chamber music pieces with extended techniques all over the place - things like that. The largest-scale piece I've ever written is a still-unperformed piano concerto that clocks in at about 45 minutes.

After I moved to Chicago, I got a 7-string electric violin and started playing live with a few prog rock-ish bands - The Gabriel Construct which is my fiance's band, and Pavlov(3) which is tapping musician Matt Tate's brainchild, to name a couple. This is exciting because now, I have real live musicians to work with, and I get to write for actual performances rather than for the desk drawer. It has been fun learning to compose outside my comfort zone (drum set! electric instruments!) and to practice my own music with the bands. People always remark that my rock music is a bit unusual; I don't think I'll ever be able to escape my roots in avant-garde Western classical music, and I'm fine with that. I've also noticed more and more Middle Eastern influences slipping into my compositions the longer I play with MEME. 

      While Sophia is an amazing musician and contributor to MEME, she is, like many members of MEME, also a student at the University of Chicago. All of the student musicians are talented musicians and gifted students. Sophia, for example, just completed her PhD in Computational Neuroscience and is rolling right into the university’s Pritzker School of Medicine to pursue her MD. On top of all this, she is genuine, warm, and engaging person. All I can really type at this point is: Wow! 
     So, on Sunday, May 27 come on down to the Logan Center at the University of Chicago and listen to Sophia, Jim, and their colleagues in the Middle Eastern Music Ensemble perform the Arab Concert orchestrated, arranged, and led by Maestro Wanees Zarour. It will be a real treat.

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