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The Arab Music Ensemble is an orchestra and choir with vocal and instrumental soloists and with a membership that represents a wide range of majors on campus and professions off campus. Instrumentation includes the oud, qanun, nay, accordion, violin, viola, cello, double bass, riqq, daff, darabukka and more.
Concerts feature world-class guest artists and a dance troupe that sets the music in motion with original choreographies and beautiful costuming. In addition to the seminal selections of Arab art, popular and folk music to be featured in the concert programs, the ensemble will present celebrated pieces of historically interconnected cultures of the Mediterranean and larger region.
Cal Poly Arab Music Ensemble Spring Concert
Saturday, May 31, 2025
7:30 p.m., Spanos Theatre
For the first time since the ensemble’s formation in 2006, a set of Syriac songs from the Assyrian peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean will be performed. The four songs tell tales of love, and contrast in musical modality and style.
Another highlight will be the world premiere of “here & there” by Arab Music Ensemble Director Ken Habib. “It’s an instrumental composition rooted in Arab art music with a footing in jazz,” said Habib. “It involves several, sometimes hybrid, melodic and metric modes and includes improvisation.”
Habib will perform the piece with returning guest artists Ishmael on qanun (zither), Fathi Aljarrah on kamanja (violin), Rafid Yalda on nay (reed flute), and Faisal Zedan on riqq (tambourine), daff (frame drum) and darabukka (goblet drum), who will play throughout the concert.
Also on the program will be a suite of celebrated instrumental and vocal selections from Arab art and popular music. Among these will be a famous muwashshah, a genre of poetry and music born of 10th-century Andalusia in the southern Iberian Peninsula. Its 14-beat metric mode will accent the rhythmic sophistication of the show.
Illustrious artists to be represented on the program include the famous Assyrian singer-songwriter from Northeastern Syria, Jan Karat; the master composer of modern Egyptian art music, Mohamed Abdel-Wahab; the beloved singer of popular Egyptian song, Karem Mahmoud; the iconic Lebanese singer, Fairuz — who with the duo of composers, the Rahbani Brothers, rose to fame in the 1950s and 60s — and the composer of the next generation of Fairuz’ songs, Ziad Rahbani.
The Arab Music Ensemble is an orchestra and choir with vocal and instrumental soloists. Its membership represents a wide range of majors on campus and professions off campus.
San Luis Obispo dance director Jenna Mitchell will lead the dance troupe in original choreography that dialogues with the music in a longstanding collaboration of bringing music and dance from the region to Cal Poly.
Tickets ($22 general, $12 students)