2019

The Arabian Passion according to J. S. Bach

What the World needs now

Sacred Bridges

A Breath from Paradise

Vox Feminae / Voice of the Blood

Passio - Compassio

«Sarband» means connection. In Mid-Eastern music theory, this term signifies a link between two composi-

tions within a musical suite. Ensemble Sarband invites most diverse audiences as well as most diverse

performers «to come together»; it «binds» them to cultural experiences previously perceived as alien.

Musical director Dr. Vladimir Ivanoff, who founded Sarband in 1988, connects cultures, people and epochs,

both as a scholar and a musician: His programs unite musicians from widely different cultures and musical

backgrounds and mediate between past and present, Early Music and living traditions.

The cooperation in the ensemble is not a fashionable crossover, but conceived as a continuous dialogue on

equal terms. All the artists unrestrictedly contribute their native traditions, their personal histories and their

own creativity to the programs, so that Sarband also becomes a musical training ground for communication

and tolerance between different cultural identities.

Two «Echo Klassik» Awards, two «Grammy» Nominations, the German Word Music Award and other Awards

honor Sarband’s worldwide artistic activities and their innovative concert programs in the last three

decades. The group released numerous CDs and a large number of renowned concert venues already

became a home for intercultural dialogue and communication.

w w w. s a r b a n d . d e “a n i m m e n s e o d e t o p e a c e”

As an ensemble director, musician and scholar, Vladimir Ivanoff endeavors to mediate between the theory and

practice of music. He illuminates the connecting threads between Orient and Occident, Judaism, Christianity and

Islam, past cultures and present time. By doing this, he is not interested in creating hip cross-cultural mishmash

projects. Instead, he is driven to create a deeper public consciousness for cultural distinctions, for clichés, for the

patterns, which determine our perception of the Other and the Foreign.

Ivanoff was born in Bulgaria, from where he emigrated to Germany as a young boy with his mother. Originally

planning to become a film director, he decided to study musicology, art history and theater studies at the Ludwig-

Maximilians-Universität in Munich. With a prize-winning thesis on the earliest lute manuscript, he received his

doctorate in musicology. Simultaneously, he studied lute and historical performance practice at the Schola Can-

torum Basiliensis and the Musikhochschule, Karlsruhe.

A grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft enabled him to proceed with a post-doctoral research pro-

ject on the musical exchanges between Orient and Occident in Venice. He also started lecturing at various Euro-

pean and American universities and conservatories. Ivanoff has published several books, contributes regularly to

music journals and encyclopedias, lectures at international conferences and directs workshops worldwide. From

2011 to 2014 he was artistic director of the festival «Tonfolgen» in Bonn, Germany.

In 1988 Ivanoff founded Ensemble Sarband. With this group he has since been performing in concerts, scenic pro-

jects, radio, TV and CD productions all over Europe, Asia and the U.S. As a CD producer, composer and arranger

he works with numerous artists from widely diverse backgrounds, amongst them: Mystère des Voix Bulgares,

Concerto Köln, The King's Singers, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, RIAS Chamber Choir, and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui.

Ivanoff was nominated for two Grammy Awards in 1994. With Sarband, he received two Echo-Klassik CD Awards in

2003 and 2006. The Region of Apulia awarded him with the «Premio Mousiké» for the diffusion of Early Music in the

Mediterranean in 2007. The following year he received the German World Music Award for his work with Sarband.

«The Arabian Passion» is a musical plea for peace. A plea nourished by the confidence, which forms the

basis of Bach's passions: that one day all suffering will come to an end. The two passion oratorios by

J. S. Bach, which have survived in their entirety, the St. John Passion and the St. Matthew Passion, are con-

sidered the culmination of the Baroque art of expression and rank high in the Occidental canon of great

works of music. No composer has conveyed the suffering of man, embodied in Jesus, in music in as striking

and passionate a manner as Bach in these works.

In his «Arabian Passion», Vladimir Ivanoff, musical director of Sarband, compares Jesus' suffering and that of

the colonized Middle East in the time of the New Testament with the current situation.

Bach's Baroque precision and complexity meet the spontaneity of classical Arab music and Jazz: two tradi-

tions which have a lot in common, for example highly sophisticated and structured improvisation tech-

niques, but also two voices which could hardly be more different: that of the traditional Arab world and a

new voice that is spreading through the world — the American way of life.

Arab musicians, two jazz saxophonists and the Modern String Quartet have joined to reinterpret Bach's pas-

sion music. Western and Middle Eastern musicians find each other in the music of Bach. In a world full of dif-

ferences and conflicts, this musical cooperation creates an intense and contemplative space for mutual

respect and peace.

T h e A r a b i a n P a s s i o n - l i n k t o t h e p r o g r a m w e b p a g e w i t h m u s i c e x a m p l e s

L i n e u p : Sarband with Fadia El-Hage & Modern String Quartet (12 Musicians)

Joel Frederiksen, the US expert on baroque vocals, and Syrian vocal virtuoso Rebal Alkhodari sing

about Love, overcoming everything, uniting everybody. They accompany themselves on lute and

oud (the Arabic lute). Mohamad Fityan and Vladimir Ivanoff, experienced bridge builders

between Orient and Occident, accompany the two on their musical voyage.

Two Syrian musicians, an American, and a Bulgarian, all migrants to Germany, share their musical

homelands: Baroque arias from Europe, American folk repertoire, Arabic art songs, and newly

composed English and Arabic songs about their cultural and musical homelands

The US embassy in Munich was delighted by this collaboration and supported the premiere of this

program in the Bavarian National Museum Munich, October 2015.

We hope that our bridge building encourages our listeners to do the important and simple: shake

hands with "the Other". In this period of disorientation and conflict, shaking hands might be the

most powerful political instrument. The power of love.

W h a t t h e W o r l d n e e d s n o w - Link to the program web page with music examples

L i n e u p : Sarband with Joel Frederiksen, Rebal Alkhodari, Mohamad Fityan, Vladimir Ivanoff

Jews, Christians and Muslims sing and listen to songs of lament and joy, confessions of sin, songs of

praise and glory. In this cooperative project, psalm settings by composers from three cultures and

religions, but the same epoch, build bridges crossing today's ruptures. Psalms can serve as a

source of spirituality but also as political tools:

With his polyphonic psalm settings, Salamone Rossi intended to save Italian-Jewish culture in the first

European ghetto in Mantua. Alî Ufkî / Wojciech Bobowski transformed melodies from the Genevan

Psalter into authentic Ottoman-Turkish music, because he wanted to give the Muslim-Calvinist

alliance against the catholic Habsburg empire a musical voice.

Most of all, psalms can serve as a path leading humans together.

In our performance, Salamone Rossi's, Claude Goudimel's and J. P. Sweelinck's polyphonic psalm

settings blend with Alî Ufkî's powerful Turkish lyrics and monophony, generating a colorful but seam-

less and natural musical flow - building sacred bridges between peoples, religions, between human

beings. Sarband created this program for collaborations with choirs and vocal ensembles, collabo-

rations that take our plea for peace across all political, cultural and religious borders.

S a c r e d B r i d g e s - Link to the program web page with music & video clips

L i n e u p : Sarband (3-6 musicians , 1-2 dervishes) & choir / vocal ensemble

Inspired by the «Grand Tour» in the Early Modern Age, we travel to the unreachable places of exotic desires: From Antonio Vivaldi's musical fairytale about the Great Moghul Ali Akbar in 16th century India, to contemporary Korean composer Isang Yun, who, while living in Germany, was dreaming about Old China, to Boris Blank (mastermind of "Yello"), painting his own soundscape of the great Taklamakan desert.

We include works by European musicians and scholars who explored the wealth of Oriental musical cultures, enlarging our knowledge and understanding: Venetian Jesuit priest G.B. Toderini notated some music from the ritual of the whirling dervishes; the ambassador G.B. Donà, also from Venice, published 6 traditional Turkish song: Both wanted to show that the Ottoman Turks were not only brave warriors but also fostered a high standing cultural life.

Traditional East European dances, pieces from the seraglio of the Ottoman sultans, folk music from Armenia. And we visit the paradise made of air, take «A Breath from Paradise»: the flute has an im-portant role in Eastern and in Western cultures. In Greek mythology she was known as Pan's instru-ment, also played by shepherds - she was the symbol of Arcadian bliss and bucolic feasting. In Buddhism and in Sufic Islam, the flute is a help in meditation, and a musical path to transcendental experience, reuniting the true self with creation.

A B r e a t h f r o m P a r a d i s e - Link to the program web page with music examples

L i n e u p : Sarband (7-8 musicians) & Dorothee Oberlinger

Songs from the Early Christian Oriental repertoire, chorales by Hildegard of Bingen and Brigitta of Sweden,

sacred songs from rural Sweden, early polyphony from the Spanish Codex Las Huelgas. In this program we

pursue the female paths towards the cognition of God in early and traditional sacred music from Orient

and Occident. Miriam Andersén (Sweden) and Fadia El-Hage (Lebanon) perform songs from their own oral

traditions and join in the written tradition from the Spanish Codex Las Huelgas.

The more our postmodern society is characterized by the dissolution of well-defined cultures of origin, the

less evitable it is for us to define and redefine our relation to home, which is not a given anymore. However,

home as a process of determining one's 'place' does not imply excluding the Other, but embracing it as a

part of oneself. A Swedish singer, who became devoted to the near-forgotten tradition of her home after

years of expertise as a singer of European Medieval music.

A Lebanese singer, who studied Oratorio in Germany, discovered European Medieval music for herself and

remembered the Arab Christian songs of her childhood on the stages of Germany. A Bulgarian raised in

Germany, who studies the culture of the Ottoman Empire, thus connecting Orient and Occident in order to

make the complex tradition of his ethnic home come alive to himself. They have long been journeying on

their own personal world travels across historic times and geographic spaces, sing songs from their own

spiritual and geographic home and meet in their mutual intellectual home: Medieval music.

V o x F e m i n a e - Link to the program web page with music examples

The Voice of the Blood - Link to the program web page with music examples

L i n e u p : Sarband with Miriam Andersén, Fadia El-Hage, Vladimir Ivanoff

Judaism, Christianity and Islam refer to messages of salvation preceded by severe ordeals, sacrifices and pas-

sions. All human beings experience suffering regardless of their religious and cultural background. Suffering, like

love, results in passion. Passionate emotion itself, experienced in love for human beings or for God, can again

lead to suffering. Art and religion are both capable of transcending the cycle of suffering and passion. Then, the

pure emotion of passion is transformed into a universal sphere of awareness, of perception of the other. Passio

becomes Compassio.

Passio and Compassio – in Western culture, human suffering and compassion are embodied most emphatically

by the figure of Christ, the incarnate God. No artist has portrayed human suffering, represented by Christ, as

forcefully and passionately with musical means as Johann Sebastian Bach in his Passions. As a religious message

of salvation, the nativity story exemplifies the unavoidable cycle of birth and death in a very direct way. Bach's

Christmas Oratorio strongly illustrates both the anticipation of advent and the simultaneous perception of and

compassion with the inevitable, painful depart. Today, Bach's Christmas Oratorio and Passions are perceived as

iconic musical manifestations of Christian belief. Against the backdrop of 2000 years of Christian history, however,

they can be considered as rather «new» phenomena.

Vladimir Ivanoff and his Ensemble Sarband confront them with Early Christian traditional chants in Aramaic, the

mother tongue of Jesus. These musical embodiments of Passio and Compassio are framed by the ritual of the

Muslim Mevlevi dervishes, which symbolizes human salvation by way of loving union with the Creator, compara-

ble to Christian notions of «unio mystica».

P a s s i o - C o m p a s s i o - Link to the program web page with music examples

L ineup: Sarband with Fadia el-Hage, Dogan Dikmen, Modern String Quartet, vocal ensemble

19 musicians & 5 dervieshes

Dr. Vladimir Ivanoff

artistic director

Orionstr. 2, DE- 85716 Unterschleißheim

Mobil: +49 (0) 172 86 38 799 Fon: +49 (0) 89 2 72 42 43

vivanoff@sarband.de