MEME Concert Day

 

Wanees Zarour and Firas Zreik

This afternoon, early evening, the Middle Eastern Music Ensemble of the University of Chicago (MEME) is giving the first concert of the 2025-26: A Salute to Ziad Rahbani.  We are featuring nine of his compositions.  We have a guest artist with us, the gifted kanun player, Firas Zreik.  Our vocalists are Karl El Sokhn and Sham Abyad.

We have worked hard for this concert to master the difficult pieces selected by our director Wanees Zarour.  The lines each instrumental group must play are a wee bit challenging but simply require practice.  The difficulty lies in bringing it all together and playing precisely with everyone hitting their marks to fully bring to life the jazzy fusion pieces as Rahbani composed them.  I do believe after seven weekly practices and a dress rehearsal, we are ready.

MEME has really evolved since I first heard the orchestra in a concert I attended in 2008 and even more so since I joined them in 2014.   For the concert today, there will be 85 of us on stage:  50 musicians and a choir of 35.  That is about two or three times the size of the ensemble when I first joined it. 

While the growth of the ensemble is impressive, the musicianship is probably at the highest level as well.  The new musicians that join MEME are simply more talented and experienced.  This is exemplified by the quality of our ‘first reads’ which is basically the first time we play a piece at a practice.  When I first joined, our first reads basically indicated how much we would need to practice the piece before it was performance ready.  Now, I am amazed at how much better our first reads are.  For simpler pieces, our first reads are practically concert ready.  For more challenging pieces, our first reads are much closer to being concert ready than we once were. 

More and more at practices, I will hear something truly impressive enough from somewhere in the ensemble that I turn my head to look.  I find myself marveling at a bass run from Cee Mikhail, a beautifully executed enhancement from our cellos, percussion, or woodwind sections.  Our ney player, Pan Fayang, is amazing.  When Ronnie Malley plays a taksim, it is brilliant. if it is in nahawand, it is steller.  More recently, we have added a brass section which is not typical in Middle Eastern music.  But, dang, they are good and give Maestro Wanees another wonderful color on his arrangement pallet.  I have seen folks improve dramatically as they join us and want to play Middle Eastern instruments.  The growth of our choir is equally impressive and is invaluable in all of the genres we tackle, especially for classical Arab and Turkish music.

People come and go in our ensemble.  Whether students or community members, people in MEME come and go… and some come back again.  This is only natural.  Students come to the university and graduate.  Community members move to and away from Chicago.  Members have to drop out due to work or family circumstances.  Yet, the trajectory of growth in numbers and musicality continues.  It is a testimony to Wanees and the culture he has created and which we all buy into and actively support.

The MEME concerts have the best attendance for events in the Department of Music at the University of Chicago.  We regularly fill the 400 seat auditorium at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Performing Arts.  We anticipate the same for tonight’s concert and… we will rock the house.