Sequenza21/The Contemporary Classical Music Weekly

Improv Heaven: Rami Khalife & Kinan Azmeh in Berkeley

We tend to forget that music is first and foremost physical sound. Raw, sweet, strenuous, or relaxed, it gets us where we live -- in our bodies, minds, and hearts. And we should never forget that sitting in a room -- in this case, Berkeley's La Pena Cultural Center April 7th -- with strangers is the best way to hear it. As when the house lights dimmed and Rami Khalife came in, bowed, went to the piano, and Kinan Azmeh took his clarinet and went to the other side of the small stage. The first percussive sound emerged from Khalife's keyboard, then Azmeh's dulcet answer in the half darkness, the audience listening hard, captured.

But how could you not be when the music -- all of it improvised but utterly shapely -- was of such a high order? And though both artists are elaborately educated -- Khalife ( yes his father's the renowned composer-oud master- singer Marcel Khalife ) largely in France, and at Juilliard with Bartok's last pupil, Gyorgy Sandor, and Azmeh in his native Syria, and at Juilliard, where he met Khalife, with Charles Neidich -- you weren't being lectured, but enlightened through sound. And the range of those sounds was immense, never flashy, and certainly never superficial or self-conscious, which is strange, and certainly inspiring, coming as it does from 2 musicians who are 24, and 29 respectively.

Khalife, as evidenced on his solo CD, Scene From Hellek ( Nagam ) has devised a unique musical language, as has Azmeh, on his Syrian group out of Damascus's self-titled one, Hewar [ Dialogue ], on La CD -- Theque , and their mastery was on full display here. Khalife coaxed lots of percussive sonorities from his Kawai baby grand, not by treating it ala Harrison and Cage, with inserted objects, but by laying things like a book, or papers on its strings, or hitting them with his bare hands ( there was precious little pedalling here ), while Azmeh's approach to his instrument tended to be more melodically driven, his technique -- did he ever breathe ? -- effortless yet total.

The duo conjured many moods in their 9 pieces, from anxiety or obsession -- Khalife's fond of ostinati and unpredictably interrupted moto perpetuo -- perhaps in Khalife's dry, industrial house music harshness, his use of a Reich like sequence of augmented / diminished chords had quiet ineluctable drive; passages in 9/16 surprised; a liquid clarinet phrase against pulsed keyboard patterns had dramatic heft; and an almost fandango -- inspired by a picture of Buenos Aires both looked at beforehand -- had duende , Garcia Lorca's term for inner fire -- to burn. The lack of titles made this already distinctive music even more so, and both artists were entirely immersed in their completely different yet completely complementary sound worlds. As in the long, deeply felt and highly lyricl closing piece, which seemed to peak halfway through when Azmeh, eyes always closed approached the 2 mikes positioned above the piano's insides, to meditate , in that moment, with Khalife's touch impressionist tender, for the rest of its duration. Come to think of it, just like life -- something happens, and we spend out lives accomodating it, or trying to.

This piece was also like Schonberg's Accompaniment To A Film Scene, which has no written or visual scenario. He saw it with his ears, as did Khalife and Azmeh -- there were no images but many inner landscapes, -- here. These are 2 supremely gifted young artists -- Khalife's playing of Brahms' 3 Intermezzi Op. 117 , on his Live In Beirut double CD ( Nagam ) gets inside this elusive piece as few artists ever have -- and certainly not Richard Goode on his all Brahms Nonesuch CD -- whose feelings seem well beyond their years. And Daniel Barenboim doesn't hire just anyone.

Azmeh played the clarinet part in the attributed to Mozart Sinfonia Concertante with the Barenboim and Edward Said-founded West East Divan Orchestra in Palestine's West Bank capital, Ramallah, several years ago, which caused a sensation -- even internationals from the EU were there. But where are they now as the Palestinians' suffering goes through the roof? Acting pc for sure. Thank God we have musicians like Khalife and Azmeh who by simply making music heal the world's soul, if only for a moment. Or a breath. 7 -- 16. iv. 06

posted by Michael McDonagh 4/16/2006