Egyptian composer Amir Hedayah has taken first place in the World Music category of the 2024 International Songwriting Competition (ISC), one of the most prestigious…
Savina Yannatou, Primavera en Salonico, Lamia Bedioui – Watersong (ECM 2773, 2025) On Watersong, her superb fifth release for ECM, remarkable Greek vocalist Savina Yannatou…
Various Artists – Born in the City of Tanta: Lower Egyptian Urban Folklore and Bedouin Shaabi from Libya’s Bourini Records 1968-75 (Sublime Frequencies, 2025) Throughout…
(headline image: The number of semsemia strings on Farasan Island © Talal Ayeel, Saudi Arabia, 2023) The semsemiah (also known as sensemia, semsemeya or simsimiyya)…
Joseph Tawadros – To Those Who Came Before Us (self-released, 2023) Joseph Tawadros, an Australian-raised musician of Egyptian origin, oud player extraordinaire, masterfully merges ancient…
The kanun, also referred to as qanun, is a type of stringed musical instrument that holds an important place in traditional Middle Eastern and North…
Shaabi is an Egyptian musical genre. It is a form of popular working-class music which evolved from Egyptian Baladi in the second half of the…
Simon Shaheen – The Music Of Mohamed Abdel Wahab (Zehra, 2022) The Music of Mohamed Abdel Wahab is a remastered reissue of one of Simon…
The Ayoub Sisters – Arabesque (2022) The Ayoub Sisters are rising stars in the area of innovative and crossover western classical music. “Arabesque” is their…
Mulid El-Magnoun (Kafr El-Dauwar Records, 2021) is the title of the new album from Yunis. It is an exploratory music trip through Sufi mulids (also…