The Middle Eastern Music Ensemble: Better than Ever

 

On Saturday May 24, 2025, the Middle Eastern Music Ensemble (MEME) of the University of Chicago performed the last concert, Overflow, of our 28^th season.  It was a beautiful concert performed by a talented and diverse group of musicians.

MEME began in 1996 with only several musicians.  For this recent concert, we had 45 musicians and a choir of 28 making for a total 73 musicians and singers on stage.  The ensemble has truly grown in size.  When I began, I want to say the total number in the 20s, maybe 30. 

As far as I can recall, first being in the audience and then as a member of the ensemble, MEME did three concerts a year, one for each quarter of the University of Chicago academic year.  The Fall concert was an all Turkish, the Winter concert was Persian, and the Spring was Arab. 

I joined MEME in 2014 fulfilling a long-held desire, dream, to play in a classical Turkish orchestra.   I had gone to a few of their concerts which were in the larger rooms in the classic old buildings that define the University of Chicago on the perimeter the quadrangle.  I hesitated to join for two reasons.  First, I had not read music for fifty years and was a bit concerned about my ability to do so.  Secondly, I was still in a corporate job, and I was pretty sure I would not be able to attend many of the practices. 

The great recession solved the second problem.  I was out of work and had to retrench and decide what to do with my remaining working years.  I could have joined MEME as early as 2009, but economic concerns and trying to make a go of a consulting business I had started consumed my time.  By 2010, I was supplementing my income with adjunct teaching of mathematics and statistics.  Teaching grew to the point where I was teaching five sections of introductory statistics at three different colleges.  When that turned into a full time faculty position at North Park University in the Fall of 2014, I finally had the time to join MEME.  North Park was essentially on the way from my home to Hyde Park. Since joining the faculty at North Park, I have always blocked out Thursday evenings for MEME.   

I joined MEME and played in the Turkish concert in the Fall of 2014.  I was familiar with half of the concert material and that was very helpful as I worked to renew and hone my ability to read music.  I passed on the Persian and Arab concerts that 2014-15 season simply because I was not familiar enough with the music.  In the Fall of 2015, I felt more comfortable reading music and decided to play in the Persian and Arab concerts that academic year.  I have not missed a concert since.

We practice in the rehearsal space on the 9^th floor of the beautiful and modern Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts which opened in 2013.   We practice every Thursday in the quad for each concert held at the end of the quad.  We usually have a dress rehearsal the Friday after our last Thursday practice to fine tune the pieces.  The concerts take place on the Saturday or Sunday after the dress rehearsal. 

Each concert was in the Performance Hall of the Logan Center.  The Performance Hall holds 400 and was always standing room only.  A few times we had an overflow space with a video feed.  The Persian concert became so popular that we did two back-to-back performances for three or four years in a row. 

Wanees Zarour has been the Director of MEME for my entire tenure with the ensemble.  When I first joined MEME, Wanees, a CPA, was an accountant and MEME was a hobby or avocation.  In the next few years, Wanees felt a strong call to dedicate himself full-time to music.  He did exactly that.  He went and got a Master’s degree from DePaul in jazz composition and has dedicated himself to this calling.  He continues to direct MEME. He also directs the Chicago Immigrant Orchestra, has his own fusion jazz ensemble, East Loop, teaches at the Simon Shaheen’s reknown Arab Music Retreat, and has a full performance schedule in and around Chicago.  Here is his biography from the University of Chicago website.

Trained in both Western and Middle Eastern musical traditions, violinist and buzuq virtuoso Wanees Zarour specializes in Maqam music and is well versed in genres from jazz to Eastern European folk. The composer, educator, and performer of Middle Eastern music teaches Middle Eastern Rhythms, Maqam Theory, and other subjects and holds master classes, residencies and lectures at Universities and educational institutions around the United States. 

Off campus, Wanees Zarour leads and composes for several groups including the Wanees Zarour Ensemble and East Loop, and co-directs the Chicago Immigrant Orchestra with guitarist Fareed Haque. He has been featured in major festivals in the United States, Europe and the Middle East and has recorded with several renowned artists. Zarour recently released his newest album, “Quarter to Midnight" featuring some of his compositional works, anchored around the maqam system and highlighting several Western and South American influences, as well as releases with East Loop, blending Maqam and Black-American music traditions.

Zarour joined the performance program in 2010 and directs the Middle East Music Ensemble, a 45 piece orchestra dedicated to the study and performance of Middle Eastern music.

Wanees has truly grown and developed MEME.  It was good before I joined.  I admired the musicianship and presentations of the concerts I attended.  I was more impressed when I joined and saw the work that goes into preparing for each concert.  I was impressed with virtuosity of the key performers and singers.  I was more impressed with the dedication that each and everyone in the orchestra had for MEME.  Wanees has continually built on these strengths to improve MEME each and every year he has directed the ensemble.

Given the amount of time we practice, MEME has became always been a tight community, really a family, of musicians.  I would say Wanees has even taken that to another level with his engaging and congenial leadership style that is so welcoming and team building.  The passion for and the love of the music is another reason we are so close.  Our shared love for the music is above and beyond the ethnic, political, and religious differences that have caused wars and massacres in the Middle East.  This makes MEME very special.  This unique aspect of MEME has attracted to more and more students and community participants to the ensemble and contributed to our growth.

While the ensemble has grown, so has the musical acumen of our members.  It takes less and less time to master each of the pieces offered in our concerts.  Good musicians want to be part of MEME.  This wonderful phenomenon is another result of the leadership of Wanees.  It has gotten to the point we only have to practice the simpler pieces once or twice.  For the more challenging pieces, our first reads are noticeably better than when I started with the ensemble.

I have seen musicians improve over the years from being in MEME.  I am certainly example of this.  I have seen tentative players, beginners, improve with each and every concert inspired by their more accomplished and talented colleagues.  This continual improvement in musicianship of the members has made us a much tighter and more agile ensemble.

The ensemble, which has grown to be a full-sized orchestra and chorus, has improved for three other reasons.  First, due to his degree in jazz composition, Wanees’s arrangements have gotten more interesting.  Combined with the increased size of the orchestra and current level of musicianship, we produce a lusher and fuller sound with the mixed complexities of both the maqam and rhythmic style of the Middle East along with the Western tradition of the interplay of melodic voices.  Secondly, the bigger and better chorus really adds a full and rich timbre to the vocal pieces which make are easily 80-90% of each of our concerts.  Lastly, we moved from the tradition of having a Turkish, Persian, and then Arab concerts.  Our concerts now are a mix of all three with the goal of welcoming more ethnicities into the repertoire.  In our most recent concert, we had a first Assyrian folk song.  We are looking to include Kurdish, Armenian, and others music genres in coming concerts.  This has also encouraged the best Middle Eastern players and singers to be part of every concert. 

The future looks very bright for MEME.

 

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Note:  I have only mentioned our Director, Wanees Zarour, in this piece.  I could have mentioned several others but did not, lest I leave out anyone that deserves mention.  Look for more articles highlighting individual musicians in the coming months leading up to our 30^th Anniversary Season in the 2027-28 academic year.

 

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Here are some photos of Wanees from this years practices.