THE BOSTON CAMERATA
Joel Cohen, director
assisted by the
SHARQ ARABIC MUSIC ENSEMBLE
Karim Nagi, director

Hayet Ayad, voice
Anne Azéma, voice
Equidad Bares, voice
Anne Harley, voice
Hazel Brooks, vielle
Joel Cohen, lauta, guitar, voice
Steven Lundahl, recorders, slide trumpet, shofar, voice
Karim Nagi, percussion (riqq, tar, darabuka, duff), chifonie, voice
Boujemaa Razgui, percussion (tar, darabuka), nay, raita, voice
Kareem Roustom, oud, guitar, voice

 

Press Excerpts

The Boston Globe: A Christmas delight

Just in time for the holidays, Warner Classics has delivered ''A Mediterranean Christmas," the latest installment of a very popular series of holiday recordings by Joel Cohen and the Boston Camerata. Six previous Camerata Christmas records remain steady seasonal sellers on CD. The newest one presents a significant and entertaining cross-cultural collaboration between five regular Camerata performers and five musicians from different musical traditions -- the three members of the Boston-based Sharq Arabic Music Ensemble, and Equidad Bares and Hayet Ayad, superb vocalists based in France who specialize in folk traditions of the Mediterranean region.

The live performances before Christmas last year represented a reunion of artists who had triumphed under difficult circumstances in a national tour of an earlier Camerata program, ''Cantigas." The Moroccan musicians who had toured and recorded the program in Europe failed to get visas in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, but Cohen discovered the local musicians from Sharq, who saved the day. A revision of the Camerata's 1980 ''Mediterranean Christmas" program provided an opportunity to get everyone together again. In high summer, June/July 2005, the group reassembled to make the recording in the Church of the Covenant.

It is a delight, propelled by the pungent, contrasting voices of the folk singers and their interaction with sopranos Anne Azema and Anne Harley, and by the equally pungent sounds of the Arabic instruments played by Sharq. Even the names of the instruments fascinate -- riqq, tar, darabuka, raita.

Some of the music comes from the court of Alfonso el Sabio, king of Spain in a period when Christians, Arabs, and Jews worked in productive coexistence -- with interesting cross-cultural consequences. The program also includes music from France, Italy, and North Africa, and from art and folk traditions, all of it programmed by Cohen for maximum variety and effect.

The album is brisk, ear-cleansing, jubilant, and inspiring. It may help to focus the mind and spirit during the weeks ahead when both will come under assault.

© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

 

The Chicago Tribune: “Superb…stylish conviction and vitality”

If you are looking for an intriguingly different Christmas album, you've come to the right place. Joel Cohen's superb early music group Boston Camerata takes the listener on an absorbing tour of medieval musical cultures of southern Europe and northern Africa, circa 1200-1900. The 19 selections are sung, and spoken, in several languages and accompanied by a nine-member instrumental ensemble playing such exotic instruments as the sthe shofar, riqq, darbuka and oud.

Don't expect to hear "Ding Dong Merrily on High." Instead, we get such obscure but pleasing fare as "Todo logar mui ben," from Morocco and Arab Andalusia; "Pastres, placatz vostre troupeu," from 17th-Century Avignon; and "Nani na ya srira" from Egypt.

These songs of celebration from (mostly) the Middle Ages are performed with all the stylish conviction and vitality we have come to expect from Cohen's crack ensemble.

John von Rhein

Published December 16, 2005

 

Time Out (Chicago): “Inspired”

A Mediterranean Christmas
Joel Cohen leads the Boston
Camerata and the Sharq Arabic Music Ensemble
(Warner Classics)

With so many ethnic groups situated so close to each other in the late
Middle Ages, it only makes sense that their music would sound similar.
So it was an inspired idea for Joel Cohen’s Boston Camerata to find
works in many languages and put them together to tell the Christmas
story in a patchwork of different viewpoints. Such groupings can easily
sound forced, but this one revels in the contrasts between Western and
Middle Eastern religions. The four singers and the instrumentalists dig
into this material like fevered holiday shoppers, with trumpetlike
shofar calls a-blazing.

Starting off in the most unlikely of places for a Christmas disc, the
album opens with “Taksim Farahfaza—Respondemos,” an instrumental number
played on Arabic instruments followed by a Sephardic prayer translated
from Hebrew into Spanish. The song asking Abraham to answer their
prayers could be a Christmas carol just by changing Abraham to Jesus or
Mary. Another surprise is the Occitan “Mei amic e mei fiel,” a
minidrama about the angel Gabriel delivering the news of Mary’s
pregnancy to her.

Aside from the intellectually interesting songs are those that deserve
to become hits, like the raucous “Como somos per conssello” and the
reserved Andalusian carol “En Belén tocan a fuego.” “Como somos” tells
of a corrupt judge who persecutes the poor and is almost thrown down a
well by demons. But Mary intercedes before they can complete the deed,
and he repents. More spirited tambourine banging can’t be found.—Marc
Geelhoed
Time Out Chicago, December 15-29, 2005. Issue 42/43.

Bn.com: “A constant delight”

 

 

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Reviews

Barnes & Noble

You could probably listen to all of the Boston Camerata's Mediterranean Christmas without even realizing it's a Yuletide album. That's not a criticism: This is one holiday CD that you won't want to file away until next year once the season has passed. An early music group that just celebrated its 50th anniversary, the Camerata is joined here by Sharq, an Arabic music ensemble, for an incredibly wide-ranging program of works: from the 12th to the 19th centuries, circling the Mediterranean from Spain through Italy and Egypt all the way around to Morocco, all inspired by some aspect of the Christmas story. And if you're aware of the context for this music, the tone of expectation, joy, and praise is unmistakable in pieces like the lilting 13th-century Italian lauda "Gloria 'n cielo." There are carols for the Kings of the Orient, dialogues between shepherds and angels, and even a brief lamentation over Herod's crimes, but the program ends with a charming set of lullabies for Virgin and Child. The variety of instrumental sounds and vocal styles is a constant delight, beginning with the horns of annunciation -- a Jewish shofar and a Moroccan raita -- on "Madre de Deus," one of several cantigas on the program from the 13th-century Spanish king Alfonso el Sabio. Condensing almost a millennium's worth of music into their project, Sharq and the Camerata have managed to produce a unique Christmas album that will charm early music connoisseurs and more casual listeners as well. Scott Paulin

Svenska dagbladet (Stockholm): “A fantastic recording”

This sophisticated Christmas disc takes us back to our roots, far from
snow-heavy trees and enormous department stores. The music comes from
various coastal areas around the Mediterraneana and spans more than 700
years, with an emphasis on the 12th and 13th centuries. The Boston
Camerata is an American ensemble specializing in really old music, and
here it is augmented by the Turkish-Arabic group Sharq Arabic Music
Ensemble. Both groups are directed by early music expert Joel Cohen. It
buzzes and plucks of instruments such as the vielle, the oud, the raita,
and the biblical-sounding shofar. A fantastic recording, both rhythmic and
meditative, with texts in French, Spanish, Italian, Occitan, Latin, and
Arabic. (December 2005)

(translation by and courtesy of Per Walthinsen)

“…The Camerata is joined here by SHARQ, an Arabic music ensemble, for an incredibly wide-ranging program of works: from the 12th to the 19th centuries, circling the Mediterranean from Spain through Italy and Egypt all the way around to Morocco, all inspired by some aspect of the Christmas story. And if you're aware of the context for this music, the tone of expectation, joy, and praise is unmistakable in pieces like the lilting 13th-century Italian lauda "Gloria 'n cielo." There are carols or the Kings of the Orient, dialogues between shepherds and angels, and even a brief lamentation over Herod's crimes, but the program ends with a charming set of lullabies for Virgin and Child. The variety of instrumental sounds and vocal styles is a constant delight…” (From Scott Paulin’s review on Barnes & Noble.com)