The recent concert given by the duo Emad Hamdy (guitar) and Hassan Sharara (violin) in the Open Air Theatre at the Cairo Opera House proved a great success. The event was held to celebrate the sixth anniversary of this charming duet who first teamed up in 2003. The programme featured music from Spain and Latin America, in addition to a number of famous songs and pieces arranged for the duet. The two stars displayed their mastery of the technical aspects of the works on the programme, as they're both well-established names in the world of classical music, which is by nature a technically very demanding genre. Sharara, the first Egyptian to study the violin academically, was also one of the first musicians to graduate from the Cairo Conservatoire, of which he was also the dean for six consecutive years. One of the great merits of Sharara is his ability to perform both classical and Oriental music magnificently on the violin. Hamdy first burst onto the Egyptian classical music scene in 1987 when he played a concerto with Cairo Symphony Orchestra under the baton of the late conductor Youssef el-Sisi. He was taught the guitar by Magdy el-Komy and he has worked ever since on spreading interest in this instrument and enriching its repertoire in Egypt. One of his greatest achievements has been to form several duets with many acclaimed instrumentalists and vocalists. His duet with Sharara has seen them perform many concerts, ranging from classical to light music. The concert, entitled 'A Summer Concert', presented 15 works by composers from Spain and Latin America. Hamdy arranged most of the works for the guitar and violin. Three pieces were new for this duet, namely an arrangement of David Gates' song If, the film music Secret Garden of Rolf Lovland and the famous song Tico Tico, influenced by the Brazilian Samba. The programme also included other works for several composers such as Pacoca by the Brazilian Celso Machado, originally written for two guitars and flute as a movement from his Brazilian Suite. The audience also enjoyed a piece from the movie Emmanuelle by French composer Francis Lai. This famous composer wrote the music for popular pictures such as the classic Love Story of 1970. The fun Latin American music performed in this concert included Sway by Pablo Beltran Ruiz, Tango Argentino by Angel Villodos and the well-known tango La Cumparsita by the great composer from Uruguay, Matos Rodriguez. The duet managed to express the spirit of these works beautifully. Then there were four works by the legendary Argentinean composer Astor Piazzolla who revolutionised the tango: two Milonga dances, as well as Oblivion and Libertango. The duet showed a great understanding of the works of Piazzolla, whose music employs a mixture of elements from classical music and jazz, such as dissonance, rich harmonies, contrapuntal segments, and the bass continuo. Improvisation played a role as well, giving the players and singers of his pieces and songs the chance to show off their virtuosity. Hamdy's arrangement of these works preserved all these characteristics, and Sharara performed the lyrical parts and improvised superbly. The adroit duo entertained the audience with two beautiful, world-famous works, Granada by Agustin Lara and Pasqual Marquini's Espana Cani. The former is one of Lara's most famous songs and was frequently sung by great singers such as José Carreras, Pl?cido Domingo and the late Frank Sinatra. Granada is part of this Mexican composer's song cycle about Spanish cities. It has distinctive melodic lines, given in this concert to the violin, and rhythmically rich and vivid accompaniment, performed by the guitar. The audience fervently applauded this beautiful piece. Espana Cani is the most famous Spanish work of all, always played as background music for the bullfighting in Spain. The piece was the finale of this beautiful concert. This has become a tradition in the summer concerts of this duet and the audiences love it: a memorable piece of music, played by two engaging performers - Hamdy and Sharara. In their coming concerts, we hope to hear more Egyptian creations by this duet, not just works from their world repertoire. We would like Hamdy to cooperate with Egyptian composers and ask them to write pieces specifically for this duet, exploiting the whole technical range of the instruments. ([email protected]).
