Clarissa Bitar & Sofiane Saidi at Habibi Festival 2023 | Quartertones Live at Joe's Pub

QuarterTones | Music from the Arab World

We partnered with Habibi Festival for a six-night celebration of ancient + contemporary sounds from Lebanon, Tunisia, Syria, Morocco, Palestine, Algeria and more! It all took place from October 1-7 at Joe's Pub in NYC.

Each night we taped live conversations with the artists on stage. This special Quartertones episode is the fifth of six, featuring a conversation with and performance by Clarissa Bitar, along with snaps from a performance by Sofiane Saidi at Joe's pub.

Clarissa Bitar is a Palestinian oud musician and composer born, raised, and based in Los Angeles, California. They graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a degree in Music and an emphasis in Ethnomusicology. As a student, Clarissa won multiple awards for excellence in performance in Ethnomusicology and had the privilege of playing around California with the UC Santa Barbara Middle East Ensemble. To further their studies, Clarissa sought out and learned from prominent Arab oudists including Simon Shaheen, Charbel Rouhana, and Bassam Saba.

Sofiane Saidi "the king of Rai 2.0", is an Algerian raï musician who has had a multifaceted musical career to date. Born in the heartland of Rai music, Saidi moved to France in the 90s. His music rethinks and revolutionises Rai music as we know it.

THIS SERIES IS PART OF THE AFIKRA PODCAST NETWORK

QuarterTones is afikra’s music podcast which hosts current Arab musicians from different geographies who play contemporary and modern music, including alternative scene or hip-hop, electronic, classical music, among other genres. The guests are invited to talk about their work and play their music – whether live or recorded – in three segments. The audience gets a chance to listen to some of the most interesting work from across the region and genres, and understand the music that these musicians and musicologists perform or study.

Explore all episodes in this series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg2zwxYLPXg&list=PLfYG40bwRKl7FiLcdH_iSgv4RiXEy4GAh

ABOUT AFIKRA

afikra | عفكرة is a movement to convert passive interest in the Arab world to active intellectual curiosity. We aim to collectively reframe the dominant narrative of the region by exploring the histories and cultures of the region – past, present and future – through conversations driven by curiosity.

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