Perspectives in Counterpoint: Layale Chaker and Hannah Nicholas Perform Arab and Jewish Music with UTEP’s Layali Al-Sham
Last Updated on Tue Jan 30 09:52:45 MST 2018
Originally published Tue Jan 30 09:45:55 MST 2018
By lfmartinez6
UTEP Communications
Violinist, Layale Chaker, and violist, Hannah Nicholas, will visit the UTEP campus and the El Paso Holocaust Museum for workshops, masterclasses, a community talk/performance, and a concert with UTEP's Middle Eastern music ensemble, Layali Al-Sham.
Events open to the public:
Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018 at 6 p.m., Hannah Nicholas, “Music As Resistance” @The El Paso Holocaust Museum (no charge)
Saturday, Feb. 3, 2018 at 7:30 p.m., "Perspectives in Counterpoint: Layale Chaker and Hannah Nicholas Perform Arab and Jewish Music with UTEP’s Layali Al-Sham” @ UTEP Fox Fine Arts Recital Hall (no charge for UTEP staff/students/faculty, $3 for other students/military, $5 for others). This program includes Layali Al-Sham’s premiere of the peace-seeking, boundary-crossing song, “Break” by award-winning Jewish-American songwriter and UTEP professor Larry Lesser, inspired by his conversations with a former UTEP colleague raised in Ramallah.
Chaker and Nicholas are world-class performers whose collaboration is remarkable considering their diverse backgrounds: Chaker identifies as Palestinian-Lebanese, and Nicholas as Jewish American. Coming from nations and communities that normally thwart any such exchange, Chaker and Nicholas have overcome the obstacles that would typically result from their cultural and religious differences through the understanding that has developed from what was, initially, an organic, musical relationship. In addition to performing at UTEP, Layale and Hannah will also speak about their journey in overcoming both figurative and literal borders to perform together around the globe.
Both artists have had international careers under the batons of Michael Tilson Thomas (Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony, Founder and Artistic Director of the New World Symphony, and Conductor Laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra) and Daniel Barenboim (General Music Director of the Berlin State Opera, former Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris and La Scala in Milan).
For more information:
Layale Chaker, https://layalechaker.com/home
Hannah Nicholas, http://www.hannahroseviola.com/
Larry Lesser, http://www.math.utep.edu/Faculty/lesser/songwriter.html