This pandemic has impacted many things from the way we socialize to how and where we work and engage in our hobbies. An example of a such a vocation and avocation is music performance. The pandemic has been tough on working musicians and hobbyists that play in ensembles and perform at any variety of events where people gather to listen or celebrate.
With universities going online in March, the Middle Eastern Music Ensemble (MEME) of the University of Chicago had to suspend face-to-face practices and cancel the Arab Concert which was scheduled for May. Our director, Wanees Zarour, decided to continue on by taking the opportunity to meet on Zoom and teach the ensemble about Middle Eastern music theory or Maqam Theory. We met during our regularly scheduled Thursday evening rehearsal time. We covered the basic scales (maqams) of Arab and Turkish music. We learned how most were divided into an upper and lower part of the scale and how those are used to evoke or transition to related maqams. We studied and discussed how to approach the art of taksim, the arrhythmic solo improvisations that are a key part of Middle Eastern music.
Pretty much the whole ensemble attended these sessions including alumni of the university and the ensemble who no longer lived in Chicago. We all appreciated the chance to get together and learn, but we all missed practicing and playing together. MEME is truly about playing the music we have all love. MEME is special because we are an orchestra of about forty musicians and it is the only place where we can perform Middle Eastern music, both classical and folk, on that scale. It is pretty awesome.
The last time we performed was at the end of February of this year. It was the Persian Concert. Over the summer, we were all hoping the pandemic would simply go away so that in September we could begin practicing for the Turkish Concert which would have taken place at the end of November. Well, the pandemic did not subside, and per the university pandemic protocols, we were unable to gather and practice face-to-face.
At our first Zoom session in September, Wanees unveiled an ambitious and very cool plan to record one song. Each of us would record our tracks at home, both audio and video, and Wanees would assemble the audio portion while his able assistant , Hayden Bunker, would work on the editing of the video part.
The song we were going to record was Agladikca popularized by Ahmet Kaya on a hauntingly beautiful piece of music composed by Ara Dinkjian. Everyone was mesmerized by it when Wanees introduced the piece and played a few recordings on our first call in September. He noted, “This is a timeless melody that I’ve wanted MEME to perform for years.”
A highlight of our Zoom sessions this fall was having Ara join one of calls. It was awesome. He spent 45 minutes with us talking the music, his creative process, and how he likes to see how others interpret his compositions. It was a great evening that turned into a question, answer, and discussion between all of us and Ara.
In other Zoom sessions, Wanees taught us the various options and applications available to do our individual recordings by phone or computer. He worked with the various sections of the orchestra: strings, wind instruments, percussion, vocalists, and traditional Middle Eastern instruments. We discussed and worked on the intonations to get the right microtones of the makam. He prepared a metronome track on which he played the melody on the oud. We all recorded to this track. Week by week we recorded by sections and reviewed them the following week. We were amazed as the various parts and voices were added. We were even more impressed, well actually, blown away from the ‘almost finished’ we heard last week. There were 60 tracks that Wanees has edited and weaved in and out. It took about 40 hours of editing to get the finished audio project. I am guessing Hayden also spent an equal amount of time on the video.
Given that this was virtual, it allowed us to include alumni musicians from around the country and even the world. Many of these alumni musicians were also University of Chicago Alumni as well. This experience was double special for these folks:
Miriam Hauser
Michael Goodyear (NYC)
Tahra Eissa (Denver, CO)
Ozgur Sumer (San Fransisco, CA)
Elham Beheshti (NYC)
Masoud Kamgarpour (Melbourne, Australia)
Ilker Capoglu (San Fransisco, CA)
Sezen Meydan (Washington DC)
Allegra Steenson (Seattle, WA)
It was an amazing amount of work to prepare for, record, mix, and present the final product. Everyone was delighted to be part of this project for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, we were playing and playing together.
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