BRATTLEBORO — A new nonprofit working to promote understanding between the United States and the Middle East and North Africa region through cultural exchange is bringing two celebrated Egyptian musicians to Brattleboro.
On Saturday, Sept. 28, at 7 p.m., Izdahar presents “Reverberations From Egypt,” a concert featuring violinist Osman el Mahdy and bass-baritone Omar El-Okdah, at the New England Youth Theatre.
Afterward, the artists will discuss the effects of recent geopolitical turmoil on the arts scene in Egypt.
“Egyptian musicians are eager to showcase in the United States some of their country's musical past, present, and future,” says Yasmin Tayeby, founder and executive director of Izdahar.
Of “Reverberations From Egypt,” Izdahar's inaugural presentation, Tayeby says the musicians will perform Egyptian compositions and interpret a selection of classic Western pieces.
They'll reprise this concert Sept. 30 at New York's National Opera of America.
Tayeby (www.yasmintayeby.com), half Egyptian and half American, divides her time between New York City and Brattleboro, where her family owns a home.
A graduate of Berklee College of Music, she ran an arts events production company in Egypt, where she brought the likes of Julio Iglesias to perform. There, Tayeby also arranged grassroots productions such as “Sing Egyptian Woman,” which reached out to the performing women in villages. Modeled on “American Idol,” “Sing Egyptian Woman” enabled its winner to fly to New York City to record an album.
She describes Izdahar as differing from that earlier effort in that it is a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the artistic integrity of the Middle East/North Africa, and to sharing the old and emerging art forms of this region with the West.
“Since early 2011, countries in the Middle East and North Africa have experienced rapid political and economic change,” says Tayeby. “With these changes come social and cultural changes as well.”
In “Reverberations From Egypt,” Osman El Mahdy and Omar El-Okdah will present some of their country's musical past, present, and future and interpret a selection of classic Western pieces. The concert will include the world première of Ramz Sabry Samy's composition for violin and piano.
El Mahdy, born in Alexandria in 1958, has spent most of his life in Egypt. He studied violin at Cairo Conservatoire, and chamber music at Geneva Conservatoire. He joined the Cairo Symphony Orchestra and was later named concertmaster of the Cairo Opera Orchestra, a position he held until 2005.
El Mahdy also founded the Cairo Opera House Quartet, where he plays first violin. He appears regularly as a soloist with Cairo Symphony Orchestra.
An accomplished performer, he also is one of the most sought-after Suzuki violin teachers in Egypt.
As a mark of his distinguished career, several Egyptian composers have dedicated works to him: Awatef Abdel Karim's “Metamorphoses on an Egyptian folk tune,” Mona Ghoneim's “Suite” for violin and piano, and Khaled Shokry's arrangement for violin and piano of Sayed Darwish's “Zourouny kol sana marra.”
Bass-baritone Omar El-Okdah was born in New York and raised in Egypt. He began singing as a chamber musician at the British International School in Cairo and went on to direct and perform in musicals such as “Chicago” and “Sweeney Todd.”
His voice training as a classical bass-baritone began in earnest while he studied history at Oxford University.
El-Okdah recently appeared in “Rigoletto” for Columbia's Opera Untapped, as the bass solo in Verdi's “Requiem” at Union Theological Seminary, and at an all-lieder recital at the International Cultural Center of Jeunesses Musicales in Croatia.
In 2012 he took his master's degree in political science at Columbia University.
In addition to his being an accomplished musician, El-Okdah is a policy analyst at the International Peace Institute in New York.
Tayeby says she is delighted to offer Izhdahar's first concert in Brattleboro - and promises to include Brattleboro in the organization's events as often as possible:
“Brattleboro is a culturally rich area, which I want to help support. The people here should be a great audience for the multicultural programs that Izdahar is planning.”
And, as an exchange, it goes both ways: Tayeby says she is working with the American embassy in Cairo to bring to Brattleboro a musical theater group from Egypt as part of its American tour. They expect to give several performances and workshops around town in a mini-theater festival.