It's hard to stifle my urge to rhapsodize about the experience of watching Naseer Shamma live. The thing about the Cairo-based Iraqi oud virtuoso is that each time you attend a performance by him is like the first time; each time his music seems more intense, more inspired and more magnificent. His latest show at El Sawy Culture Wheel attracted the usual full-house motley crew of Egyptians and expats, young and old from all walks of life. My companion who was visiting from the UK had once bought one of Shamma's CDs and was overwhelmed by the thought of watching him on stage. The excitement was contagious. And Shamma did not disappoint. As we Egyptians have been accustomed to for decades, spring has always been marked with special music. We waited each year for Om Kulthoum, Abdel Halim Hafez and Farid El Atrash's new songs celebrating a season where everything comes back to life and love is in the air. Hence, this show, titled Spring 2007, was all about love. Shamma opened the night with a solo recital of a medley of classic love tunes. Adding his unique touch, he blended themes from songs by Halim, Fayrouz, Farid and Om Kulthoum to which the entranced audience would break into heated applause every few minutes. He was then joined by Oyoun Orchestra consisting of two violinists, a qanoun player, a cellist, a double-base player a percussionist and a nay (reed flute) player. They began with an introduction where each musician gave a solo piece set off by a theme played by Shamma in a seamless conversation between the instruments. As each soloist reached his crescendo, again the audience would start clapping enthusiastically. For the next two and a half hours, which actually passed like a few ethereal minutes where I felt transported to another realm of being altogether, Shamma would intermittently play a solo followed by a group piece and so on. Introducing a solo piece called "Hob El Asafeer (The Love of Birds), he recounts that he composed it in 1982 while he studied music in Baghdad. The piece, he said, was hailed as a departure from traditional styles, creating what he termed an innovative form of "image music . Indeed as he plucked on the strings oscillating between high and low pitches, fast and slow paces, you could almost see the two feathered lovers hopping on the branch of a tree, locking beaks or fluttering their wings in a playful scuffle or even a warm embrace. Shamma then played "Hob Taht El Matar (Love in the Rain), a new piece arranged for the whole band, again featuring jazz-style solos where the musicians boast their skills. After the intermission the band played "Sourat Hob (A Picture of Love) which introduced the piano to the sound mix, adding yet another dimension to the emotional impact of the music. Another highlight was a piece titled "Ta'aleem Houria (Houria's Lessons) which Shamma said was inspired by a work by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish dedicated to his mother Houria. But by far the most heartrending piece was one written for Iraq. With each note, you could sense the artist's nostalgia for his homeland, once the idyllic setting of past loves, but now the scene of endless sorrow, separation and pain. Shamma switches to another oud, explaining that it is tuned to produce more soprano sounds and that it is named after his three-year-old daughter Layl, the youngest member of the audience. As the concert winds up with another medley featuring themes from our rich heritage of love songs, it occurs to me how Shamma's music not only appealed to my sense of hearing, but that it was also highly visual. It captured the vicissitudes of love and life so purely that I could almost see the twinkle in the eyes of lovers about to meet, that burning tear dropping and the blush flooding the cheeks of a virgin experiencing the agony and ecstasy of love for the very first time. As the music reaches the finale crescendo, the elated audience abruptly rises to its feet in an explosion of applause that lasts about five minutes. For a moment there, all was well with the world. Naseer Shamma performs regularly at El Sawy Culture Wheel. For more information, check out their website at www.culturewheel.com
