• The Egyptian Contemporary Music Ensemble (ECME)
Established by the European-Egyptian Contemporary Music Society e.V in 2010, the ECME presents a series of concerts every season as Guest Artists of the Department of Performing and Visual Arts at the American University in Cairo . This gathering of some of the finest Egyptian musicians from several generations serves to foster new composition and performance.
All members of the ECME have pursued their musical education in Egypt as well as abroad, and by now occupy important positions in major cultural institutions and/or other professional ensembles. There is a strong desire among these performers to share their experience and pass on their practical knowledge by exposing students to important works of contemporary music. The concert series in the Ewart Memorial Hall in Cairo explore different themes, styles, epochs and regional characteristics of contemporary music. They are preceded by open rehearsals, and completed by lectures and masterclasses that provide deeper insight into the respective subject. Beside its residence at the American University, the ECME has over a very short period of time become an eminent cultural ambassador for Egypt. It is the only ensemble in the country to date to perform recent national and international productions in the field of contemporary music, and the only one to work with composers from other parts of the world who wish to develop new pieces with an Egyptian ensemble. After a very successful presentation in Germany in November 2011 in collaboration with the renowned Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart and other German musicians and the first appearance of the Ensemble at a national festival in the course of the Cairo Contemporary Music Days 2012, the ECME celebrated its first international prestigious appearance the Mediterranean composers presentation Festival Prsences in Aix-en-Provence, the European Capital of Culture 2013. beside different cooperation in Egypt the ensemble is planing several European concerts in 2016-2017 and working with Egyptian, Arab and European composers such as Oscar Bianchi, Thierry pecou, Vykintas Baltakas, Amr Okba and Hassan Khan.
Projects.
Gaudeamusmuziekweek 2016
http://www.muziekweek.nl/programma/vague-contemporaine/
ECME concert the Gaudeamus festival
On the 10th of September 2016 at the TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht, the Netherlands
Participating Works: Bahaa Al Ansary (EGY 1991) – L’Éternité du Nil
Zaid Jabri (SYR/POL 1975) – Fluctus
Wilbert Bulsink (NLD 1983) – nieuw werk
Bart de Vrees (NLD 1974) – Meenemenemeneem, elegie voor de nachtbrakers
Willem Jeths (NLD 1959) – Monument to a universal marriage (jurylid Gaudeamus Award 2016)
Performed by:
Egyptian Contemporary Music Ensemble
Soloist: Nehad El Sayed (Oud)
Conductor: Vykintas Baltaks
Vocals: Michael Wilmering, bariton
Mijke Sekhuis, sopraan
Promising fruitful post “Heritage and Modernity” Participation
The Egyptian Contemporary Music Ensemble has made it to the international Gaudeamus Muzeikweek with five contemporary works carrying different falcons and messages to it but agreeing on the importance of the collision between the western and western cultures through music. the Dialogue between cultures started in Cairo long ago in Cairo with the European Egyptian Contemporary Music Society’s serious endeavours that started with small meetings between European contemporary composers and local Oud players.
That later has developed into a bigger frame to include about 40 composers, musicologists, music critics and artists from about 20 different countries all around the world who cam to Cairo in April for a four-day forum entitles “Heritage and Modernity”. The forum has debated issues of expression of identity in Music and themes of modernism, post-modernism and contemporaneity in the East and the West and the different manifestations of such concepts in contemporary music.
ECME at Gaudeamus
The ensemble as mentioned before is presenting 5 different contemporary works for prominent composers such as Bahaa al Ansary (Egypt), Zaid Jabri (Syria/Poland), Wilbert Bulsink (The Netherlands), Bart De Vrees (The Netherlands) and Last but not least the national poet of the Netherlands in 2014 Willem Jeths. Most of these works try to bring a cultural element and theme of special to its composer, so we may see different shades of each composer that distinguish his musical language from the other. For example, Zaid Jabri, brings his very own percepion of the tranquil but vigorous Aegean sea and its waves in his composition “Fluctus” while Bahaa el Ansary brings the Eternity of the Nile to the dutch audience. According to Bulsink his experience will be more on “combining different polyphonic techniques from the medieval and renaissance Europe with middle-eastern maqams and quarter tones”.
Such experimentation has been tried practically in Cairo in the concert “Caprice” within the course of the “Heritage and Modernity” Forum in which Jabri and Bulsink have took part and introduced works to audience in Cairo featuring these such new concepts that will be taken further and to different audience in September’s concert.
This participation comes in collaboration with the Egyptian Ministry of Culture, the Foreign Cultural Relations Sector, the Dutch Embassy in Cairo, Heritage and Modernity and the Gaudeamusmusiekweek
CAPRICE
12.04.2016
Caprice at the Manasterly Palace
NEGMEYAT
3.3.2016
AHMED MADKOUR AL FAEL
AMR OKBA WAHDY
Mada Masr Culture Desk
(now)here
17.02.2016
SOLO
18.11.2015
Forum Wallis “Ultras +“
11.05.2015
EECMS
Ultras +
UK Contemporary Composers Portrait I
Cross Hungarian Contemporary Composers
On25 Action
Hans Werner Henze Portrait
Radio France
Festival Prsences in Aix-en-Provence
Ensemble de musique contemporaine égyptienne
Ramz Samy Sabry (né en 1973) : Songs for Freedom (Chants pour la liberté), symphonie de chambre (CM-CRF)
Thierry Pécou (né en 1965) : Séhel, pour rabab, derbouka, flûte, clarinette, basson, contrebasse et percussion (CM)
Khaled Shokry : Homage to the Revolution (Hommage à la révolution), avec la participation de Mostafa El Razzaz et Ayman Lotfy, effets visuels (CM)
1. Under the Millstone – The Awakining (Sous la meule – Le réveil) – 2. An Elegy to the Martyrs of the Revolution (Une élégie aux martyrs de la revolution) – 3. Phoenix (Phénix)
Mohamed Saad Basha (né en 1972) : El-Olouban, pour ensemble (CM-CRF)
Ahmed Madkour (né en 1967) : From The Epic of Gilgamesh, 6 et 7* (De l’épopée de Gilgamesh) 6. The Bull of Heaven (Le Taureau du paradis) – 7. The Underworld(Le monde souterrain)(CM-CRF)
Sarah Maria Sun, soprano*
Martin Nagy, ténor*
Andreas Fischer, basse*
Ensemble de musique contemporaine égyptienne
Gerhard Müller-Hornbach direction
Olivier Messiaen Quatuor pour la fin du temps (1941)
THURSDAY, MAY 24, PRINCE TAZ PALACE, 8 PM
THIERRY PÉCOU, FRANCES-MARIE UITTI & MEMBERS OF THE EGYPTIAN CONTEMPORARY
MUSIC ENSEMBLE
THIERRY PÉCOU PIANO
MEDHAT ABDELSALAM VIOLIN
FRANCES-MARIE UITTI VIOLONCELLO
SHERIF EL RAZZAZ CLARINET
1000 Töne Festival
