Gifted Arab-American classical musicians get forum they deserve at Grant Park
By: John von Rhein
Source: Chicago Tribune
For many Muslim and Arab classical musicians living in the West, it is important to come forward and express their identity. Some have chosen to make political statements through their music, as composers throughout the centuries have done. Others have chosen to draw wider attention to the enormously rich musical tradition of Islam. Others simply write their music. Whatever the case, there are major voices here needing to be heard.
The Grant Park Music Festival provided a rare forum for two such musicians Wednesday evening at Pritzker Pavilion: The Chicago-born conductor Fawzi Haimor, an American of Jordanian, Lebanese and Filipino descent; and Damascus-born composer Kareem Roustom, whose parents are Syrian and American. The two men are based on opposite ends of the country, Haimor in the San Francisco Bay Area, Roustom in the Boston area. Both are gifted and accomplished artists and amply deserving of the exposure Grant Park gave them.
Haimor, who was making his podium debut with the Grant Park Orchestra, began his interesting program with the Midwest premiere of a Roustom work that does have political connotations, his 2014 orchestral piece “Ramal.” Roustom wrote it for Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, an ensemble of Arab, Israeli and European musicians, dedicating it to Edward Said, the Palestinian-American scholar and political activist who co-founded that orchestra with Barenboim.
Along with Mohammed Fairouz, Roustom is one of the most prominent active Arab-American composers. He immersed himself in Western jazz and classical at an early age after the family immigrated to Cape Cod, Mass. In his concert works, indie film soundtracks and pop, jazz and TV arrangements, you are just as likely to hear echoes of John Coltrane as Shostakovich, although his current leanings are classical.
Structurally, “Ramal” is informed by the poetic meters of pre-Islamic Arabic verse, pushing forward in irregular patterns across a tonally centered canvas for large orchestra. While not programmatic, the 12-minute opus has a subtext of strife, an unsettled tone that speaks to the devastating civil war now racking the composer’s homeland. The music, he told me, represents his angry and appalled reaction to the violence that has displaced members of his family.
It’s a most powerful piece that works perfectly well when heard as pure music, divorced from its political associations. Nor does it attempt a fusion of Arab and Western modes: I was unable to detect much of the former, but I did catch suggestions of Benjamin Britten in his glowering, “Sinfonia da Requiem” manner. The opening onrush of protesting brasses over roiling strings settles into a series of contrasting episodes tied together with canny craftsmanship and gut-level force.
“Ramal’s” sinewy extroversion makes it ideal outdoor concert fare. The Grant Parkers played it to the hilt under Haimor’s committed direction, and the composer bounded up on stage to join in the applause.
Haimor’s career is advancing in careful degrees, from orchestral posts in Alabama and Pittsburgh to, as of this fall, Wurttemberg, Germany. At 34, he is all serious purpose on the podium. He conveys his ideas to the orchestra musicians without ostentation, and they respond well to that. He also happens to be an articulate musical tour guide. Kudos to Carlos Kalmar and the festival management for giving him his first chance to make symphonic music in his native Chicago.
His program effectively set the Roustom piece against masterpieces of late 18th-century Viennese classicism and the mid-20th century.
Franz Joseph Haydn’s final symphony, No. 104 (“London”), was played in a brisk, straightforward manner that allowed the music to speak with vivacity and clarity despite the distraction of screaming firetrucks around Millennium Park. This was Haydn without frills or fuss and was all the better for it.
More than 50 years after his death, Paul Hindemith’s reputation has ridden a perplexing roller coaster. It’s shameful that the German composer, who spent the latter half of his career working and teaching in the U.S., has yet to be accorded his rightful place among 20th-century masters. His “Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber” is a 20th-century classic, a hugely enjoyable piece that deserved a less cumbersome title.
Haimor and the orchestra did a bang-up job with it, bringing out the music’s rollicking high spirits while giving the first-chair players a chance to shine in the many demanding solos that pepper the score. Keeping counterpoints clear within the bustling neo-baroque textures is always a tricky business, but Haimor did so well. Only momentary lip failure on the part of the solo trumpet marred the band’s full-blooded reading.
The Grant Park Music Festival season will continue with the New Zealand-born conductor Gemma New, replacing Simone Young, leading the Grant Park Orchestra in concerts at 6:30 p.m. Friday and 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park, Randolph Street and Michigan Avenue. Andrew Tyson is the piano soloist; ticket prices vary in reserved seating area, other seating free; 312-742-7647, www.gpmf.org.
