ARCHIVES 2018 / Cairo’s Cry

To Peter Corser's saxophone continuous exhale, to Karsten Hochapfel's “barock” strings, to clarinetist Yom's klezmer intonations, young poet Abdullah Miniawy responds with the striking voice of a symbol of an Egyptian youth hungry for freedom and justice. The virtuoso singer whispers or proclaims Sufi songs against a tapestry of hypnotic loops, leading the entranced audience on a mystic journey. Spirituality and liberty meet in a shared desire of invention to carry the hopes of peoples too long muzzled by political, social, and religious oppression. Between rock, jazz, oriental music, and Sufi and spoken word poetry, Cairo's Cry invents a powerfully metaphoric world, born of a desperate need for alterity and encounters that would transcend roots, identities, and borders.

Abdullah Miniawy
Abdullah Miniawy is a young Egyptian poet, singer, and composer from the oasis-city of Faiyum. He has performed in front of tens of thousands of people on the squares of Cairo and in the city's clubs during the revolution, before moving to Europe, where he has been working on numerous projects with La Voix est Libre and the bands Carl-Gari and SighFire. Along the way, his path crossed that of trumpet player Érik Truffaz, rapper Marc Nammour, oud players Kamilya Jubran and Mehdi Haddab... Strongly attached to freedom and to the free circulation of ideas, he uploads his songs for free on the internet.

Peter Corser, Karsten Hochapfel, Yom
Paris-based multi-instrumentalists Peter Corser (England) and Karsten Hochapfel (Germany) accompany various styles of improvised shows, from jazz to world music. Yom (France), a neo-klezmer clarinetist with varied influences, shares their enthusiasm for musical exchanges that transcend borders.