Amir ElSaffar + Zinc & Copper

Born in Chicago in 1977 to an American mother and an Iraqi father, the trumpeter and composer Amir ElSaffar studied western classical music and jazz in his home town and Iraqi maqam music in Baghdad and London. In his explorations of the connections between these idioms, he sometimes uses a microtonal trumpet as well as a santur, the Iraqi hammered dulcimer, the main instrument of the classical maqam tradition. He has played with Cecil Taylor, Daniel Barenboim, Vijay Iyer and many others, and was heard in Berlin during the MaerzMusik festival earlier this year as a member of Catherine Christer Hennix’s ensemble. “The Wire” has described him as “uniquely poised to reconcile jazz and Arabic music without doing either harm.” For this concert at the Kirche am Hohenzollernplatz, which possesses special acoustical qualities, he will present a composition commissioned by Jazzfest Berlin.

<small>Commissioned by Berliner Festspiele / Jazzfest Berlin</small>

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