Music by Taraf Syriana, they combine folk/pop inspired by music from the Balkans via Syria to Kurdistan.
Taraf Syriana is a collection of four musicians. They are all conservatory trained, but in different genres from western classical to Syrian classical to Romani and they play a variety of instruments from different traditions. They combine all this to create a kind of fusion folk/pop, inspired by the music of the Balkans via Syria to Kurdistan.
What stood out most, aside from the variety and energy, were the instruments. Two of the core members; Sergiu Popa and Omar Abour Afach play instruments that are conventional enough; piano accordion and viola respectively. The other two are a bit more unusual. Naeem Suanwar plays the ancient zither-like instrument, the qanun, which not only sounds beautiful, but is also beautiful to look at. Noémy Braun plays a six-string cello that has an unusual range of possibilities that the foursome takes full advantage of.
The love for the music of the large area centered on Syria made the four musicians want to unite and communicate with the general public about the exceptional richness of these multiple and thousand-year-old traditions. The focus is even more precisely on the gypsy traditions of this vast geographic whole that extends to the Balkans in the west, Egypt, Lebanon, the Kurdish country, Armenia and the Caucasus, and even India. Occasionally the quartet even dares to try the Argentine tango.
CD. Taraf Syriana. LABEL: Laluworld records (2022), code: LWR029. VIDEO
Produced by:
