Kinan Azmeh: Live in Berlin

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 Love").

Azmeh spoke with me from his Brooklyn home about his recently released Live in Berlin album, explaining that when the owners of Manhattan's Cafe Epistrophy asked him to bring his band to perform in 2006 he didn't have one.

Rather than turn down the job, he recruited his friends Kyle Sanna (guitar) and John Hadfield (drums) who were joined a year later by Josh Myers (bass), forming CityBand. It was this quartet that emerged from the COVID lockdown and performed in 2021 at the Pierre Boulez Concert Hall in Berlin.

Azmeh did not intend to release the concert as a live album, saying, "the recording was going to be just for us but the energy in the room was very special. We felt like we should release it to the world."

The brutal Syrian Civil War looms large for all the brave citizens of that nation who endured decades of repression under the al-Assad regimes. He said, "most of this music was composed and performed during a difficult time of my life that began with the Syrian uprising in 2011, music that is inspired by anger, sadness, frustration, and above all the need to hold on to one's optimism, hope and creative tools in the face of atrocities. It moves me profoundly to be sharing this album with the world as my Syrian people are able to sing again after their long and costly struggle against tyranny and dictatorship."

I asked Azmeh if he hoped to return to Damascus for a concert. He replied, "when it comes to returning to Syria, I prioritize teaching over giving concerts as the music students there have been deprived from meaningful educational interactions with the outside world."

The album opens with the mesmerizing "The Queen Commanded," inspired by Elias Khoury's novel Children of the Ghetto (2019). Guitarist Kyle Sanna and bassist Josh Myers provide a droning pedal point over which Azmeh's rich clarinet weaves modal melodies. The pace quickens, slows to a crawl, and gradually stops.

Tracks 3 and 4, "Daraa" and "Jisreen," are cities that suffered violent reprisals by the Syrian government following the 2011 uprising against Bashar al- Assad's murderous regime. Azmeh's clarinet is a cri de coeur, quoting protest songs indigenous to the cities.

The quartet's sound defies categorization. The songs are composed but include extensive improvisation; they are based on traditional Western harmonies, but feature the modes of the Arabic māqām and Middle Eastern rhythms. We can safely call it "jazz" and trouble ourselves no further.

Azmeh's virtuoso clarinet work is front and center, but Live in Berlin is very much an ensemble work. Throughout the concert Sanna and Myers provide ethereal landscapes for Azmeh's rich, modal melodies while Hadfield punctuates with percussive accents rather than traditional timekeeping.

Azmeh and Sanna trade clipped phrases in the final cut, "Wedding," conjuring a raucous reception in the desert winds.

Live in Berlin is a moving elegy to the half million souls lost to a madman, but it pulses with life and hope.

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