Acoustic Roots

The programme Acoustic Roots is being made on a new location: Podium Oost in Utrecht. Today, our guests are Ud player Nizar Rohana together with percussionist Modar Salama.

Nizar Rohana is a Palestinian living in the Netherlands. He is a virtuoso on the ud, a pear-shaped string instrument which is particularly often played in the Middle East.
Rohana mastered a style which is a combination of modern compositions and retention of the unique idiom of the Ud.
Rohana is from the village of Isifya on Mount Carmel, near Haifa. His father plaid ud during village festivities, and his mother accompanied him on percussion. Rohana started playing music at an early age, and from 13 years of age on he played the ud. He studied ud, composition an musicology, and he gained in-depth knowledge on the development of modern ud compositions. Rohana has been inspired by western classical composers such as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin and Brahms, but also by musicians from the Middle East such as Tanburi Cemil Bey, Kemani Tatyus Efendi, Muhammad Al-Qasabji and Muhammad Abdel Wahab.
Since September 2013, Rohana is living in the Netherlands, where he is working on a PhD in improvisation and composition in solo ud performances, at Leiden University, Academy for Creative and Performing Arts.

He has ample stage experience as a soloist, but he also plays together with music ensembles playing traditional, modern, experimental and world music. The last fifteen years he could be found on many international stages: in Japan, Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, Europe and the USA. Meanwhile, he has released four albums, the latest with his trio: Nizar Rohana Trio- Furāt

Modar Salama is a Syrian drummer and percussionist from Damascus, now living in Amsterdam. He studied classical and oriental percussion at the Higher Institute of Music in Damascus and developed himself as a Jazz and Latin drummer, and at the same time  he remained true to his classical and Arab roots. He has played with the Syrian National Orchestra, the Syrian Big Band, and in many other international projects in China, Jordan, Malaysia, Tunisia, Austria, Germany, Lebanon, Denmark and Egypt. Modar worked especially for Het Muziektheater, where he performed in a large number of plays situated in Syria and the Arab world. Now he’s working at a few projects as an Arab percussionist and drummer and by doing do is creating his own style.

Playlist:

1. Madar Hijaz
2. Safsaf Abyad
3. Mayadin
4. Samai Shad Aaraban
5. Iraq
6. Ajam
7. Furat