Recording: Labyrinth Ensemble with Lamia Yared

Artist: Labyrinth Ensemble with Lamia Yared

Song: Layali el wasl

Recorded at the Aga Kham Museum, November 13, 2021.

Labyrinth Ensemble with Lamia Yared - Layali el wasl

An auspicious beginning to this new phase from Labyrinth Ontario, debuting their full ensemble for the first time. This concert (and the ones slated to follow) expand on Labyrinth's mandate to foster cultural exchanges and musical education, bringing in an esteemed artist-in-residence — in this case vocalist/oudist Lamia Yared — for a period of extended rehearsals to give the musicians a chance to really dig into the material. The results were excellent across the board as the group stretched out in a series of traditional Turkish and Arabic musical styles, finding space to give each of the members a chance for their own instrument to stand out.

The full ensemble for this show was: Sadaf Amini (santur), Yang Chen (percussion/hand drums), Burak Ekmekci (baglama), Michael K. Harrist (yayli tanbur), Pedram Khavarzamini (tombak), Roa Lee (gayageum), Naomi McCarroll-Butler (saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet, sallow flute/konvovka), John McKinnon (bass), Scott Peterson (bass), Araz Salek (tar), Marta Solek (cello, Greek lyra, plock fiddle), Tev Stevig (tanbur, oud), Aysel Taghi-Zada (violin), and Amely Zhou (erhu).

If you have access to facebook you can (at this writing) still watch the excellent-sounding archived webstream.

screenshot from Aga Khan webstream.