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Jazz Articles about Kinan Azmeh

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Radio & Podcasts

Kinan Azmeh: Live In Berlin, Rooted In Damascus

Read "Kinan Azmeh: Live In Berlin, Rooted In Damascus" reviewed by Lawrence Peryer


Today, the Spotlight shines on clarinetist and composer Kinan Azmeh.Earlier this year, Kinan released Live in Berlin (Dreyer Gaido, 2025), his fourteenth album with his CityBand quartet. The album captures music he wrote during Syria's 2011 uprising--pieces that carry the weight of watching your homeland torn apart from thousands of miles away. Born in Damascus and now based in Brooklyn, Kinan has spent decades crossing the world with his clarinet, performing with Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble, the ...

1
Radio & Podcasts

New Music from Azmeh, Imboden, Lehman & More

Read "New Music from Azmeh, Imboden, Lehman & More" reviewed by Bob Osborne


This edition of the show features twelve brand new album releases with a broad variety of jazz, varied line-ups and disparate subject matter. Playlist Show Intro 00:00 Kinan Azmeh And City Band “Dance" from Live In Berlin (Dreyer Gaido) 00:28 Sean Imboden Large Ensemble “Someone To Watch Over Us" from Communal Heart (Self Released) 13:53 Atlantic Jazz Collective (feat. Norma Winstone and Joe LaBarbera) “Raffish" from Seascape (Alma Records) 22:37 Steve Lehman Trio + Mark Turner “40b" from ...

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Interview

Kinan Azmeh: Berlin and Beyond

Read "Kinan Azmeh: Berlin and Beyond" reviewed by Katchie Cartwright


Syrian-born New York-based clarinetist and composer Kinan Azmeh and his CityBand released Live in Berlin on March 1, 2025 (recorded in 2021), dedicating the project to the people of Syria with this statement: “It moves me profoundly to be sharing this album with the world as my Syrian people are able to sing again after the long and costly struggle against tyranny and dictatorship. The album is dedicated to all who believe that making music is also an act of ...

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Radio & Podcasts

Kinan Azmeh, Yazz Ahmed, Arturo O'Farrill, Mortelle Randonnée & More

Read "Kinan Azmeh, Yazz Ahmed, Arturo O'Farrill, Mortelle Randonnée & More" reviewed by Ludovico Granvassu


Enjoy a playlist featuring heartfelt and original tributes to Carla Bley, and projects enriched by Arabic, West-African and Indian traditions.Happy listening!Playlist Ben Allison “Mondo Jazz Theme (feat. Ted Nash & Pyeng Threadgill)" 0:00 Mortelle Randonnée “Musique Mecanique I" La reine uphone (Mr. Morezon) 0:16 Host talks 5:28 Arturo O'Farrill & The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra “Blue Palestine Part Two" Mundoagua--Celebrating Carla Bley (Zoho) 7:08 Host talks 12:43 Yazz Ahmed “Though My Eyes Go ro Sleep, My ...

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Album Review

Kinan Azmeh: Live in Berlin

Read "Live in Berlin" reviewed by Frank Housh


Clarinetist and composer Kinan Azmeh occupies a unique space in the musical world. He is grew up with Western classical music and trained at the Higher Institute of Music in Damascus as well as Juilliard, where he began his studies one week before the 9/11 attacks. His expansive and eclectic body of work includes compositions for orchestra, chamber music, opera, theater, dance, film, and most recently, scoring 30 episodes of the Syrian-Lebanese TV series, “Nazret Hob" ("Look of ...

4
Take Five With...

Take Five With Clarinet And Composer Kinan Azmeh

Read "Take Five With Clarinet And Composer Kinan Azmeh" reviewed by AAJ Staff


Meet Kinan Azmeh Hailed as a “virtuoso, intensely soulful" by The New York Times and “spellbinding" by the New Yorker, Syrian-born, Brooklyn-based genre-bending composer, clarinetist and improvisor Kinan Azmeh has been touring the globe with great acclaim. He has collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma, John McLaughlin, Daniel Barenboim and the New York Philharmonic, among others. Azmeh is the winner of Germany's Opus Klassik Award for his solo album Uneven Sky (Dreyer Gaido, 2019) and is featured on the Grammy-winning album Sing ...

2
Album Review

Bob Gluck: Early Morning Star

Read "Early Morning Star" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


On this release, pianist Bob Gluck mixes the realms of classical music and jazz in interesting ways. The formal, declarative music produced by Gluck, clarinetist Kinan Azmeh and vocalist Andrea Wolper is given flow and earthiness by the rhythmic pull of bassist Ken Filiano and drummer Tani Tabbal. The front-line combination fluidly rises and falls through pieces like the sparkling “A Time of Singing," with Wolper singing words from the Bible's Song of Songs over surging piano, and ...


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