Good Evening.

What you are part of tonight is heritage in the making. Every musician on this stage is adding their voice to great musical traditions that have travelled across time, generation to generation, to reach us today.

For tonight’s performance, I‘ve drawn from music of the lands of the Silk Road – from Latin poetry and Gregorian chant to the traditional sound of the Chinese erhu. At its heart are the nuanced and profound musical languages of the lands of the Muslim peoples. From Andalusia to North Africa, from the Middle East to Central and South Asia, the music of the peoples of these lands are among the greatest artistic expressions of human history. 

Tonight we celebrate the genius of these living traditions. We enter their vibrant world, we tell the stories of their hearts, and we gift the beauty of their music, together with ours, to future generations. 

Huge thanks to our remarkable soloists who’ve joined us from around the world.

Guo Gan has brought the traditional sound of China via his home in France
Pooja Gaitonde has travelled from India
Nabyla Maan is joining us from Morocco
and Tayyar Bayramov has come from Azerbaijan, a country close to my heart

Also joining us:

From India: Asad Khan on sitar,
Coming from the UK:
Syed Ali Jabari on tanbur
Mohamad Jabari on daf
and Farshad Mohammadi on santur.

Shirzad Fataliyev on balaban is from Azerbaijan
and from Türkiye, Omer Avci on percussion.

As the qawwali musicians are joining us, I’d like to thank them for bringing their ecstatic Sufi sounds to the stage.

My time is limited so I cannot introduce each of the musicians by name but you can learn more about them on my social media.
For now please give them all a huge round of applause.

My compositions tonight aspire to express in sound the ways we come to know, to appreciate, and to love one another.

Thank you all for your presence here.
Enjoy the rest of the performance.