PHOTO BY SAMANTHA WEST
arts & life
mu s i c
Beiser
Fairouz
Building Bridges
An Israeli-American
cellist and an
Arab-American
composer team up
to let the music do
the talking.
details
Desert Sorrows will be per-
formed at 7:30 p.m. Thursday,
Jan. 14, at Congregation
Shaarey Zedek in Southfield;
8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 15, at the
Macomb Center for the Perform-
ing Arts in Clinton Township;
and 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 16, at
Orchestra Hall in Detroit.
$10-$25 for community
concerts; $15-$100 at Orchestra
Hall. (313) 576-5111; dso.org.
30 January 7 • 2016
Suzanne Chessler | Contributing Writer
D
esert Sorrows, the title of a piece being introduced by the
Detroit Symphony Orchestra, masks the upbeat mood shared
by the guest instrumentalist and visiting composer as they once
again collaborate.
Maya Beiser, an Israeli-American Jewish cellist who encouraged the
DSO to commission a new work by Mohammed Fairouz, has played
other pieces by the composer, an Arab-American who most recently set
Kol Nidre to music for her upcoming album Trance Classical.
The two, both New Yorkers committed to promoting cross-cultural
understanding on stage and off, will be celebrated in three concerts: Jan.
14 at Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Southfield; Jan. 15 at the Macomb
Center for the Performing Arts in Clinton Township; and Jan. 16 at
Orchestra Hall in Detroit.
Also on the program, conducted by Leonard Slatkin, will be works by
Dvorak, Elgar and Mozart. A talk about the new piece is being arranged
for the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, a center known
by Fairouz, whose earlier travels to Michigan involved close friendships.
“My mission is to create new music and hopefully great music, and
I always look for composers I feel can make something really beautiful
and great,” Beiser explains in a phone conversation.
“Mohammed fit those categories, and that’s why I wanted him to
write this piece. It’s really very much about what Mohammed is about
and what I’m about — the idea of spirituality.
“Part of the excitement in a new piece is the journey for audience and
performers as catalysts for the work. We’re all coming together to create
something new.”
Beiser, who has commissioned hundreds of pieces and is known for
bringing multimedia effects into performances that reach from classics
to rock, will be more traditional for this concert series. The only excep-
tion will be the amplification of the cello heard throughout the three
movements — the first moderately fast, the second slow and lyrical, and
the third exhilarating and passionate, she says.
“Desert Sorrows tells a very specific story and invokes shared tradi-
tions of Jews, Muslims and Christians,” Fairouz explains over the phone.
“I believe in angels, and the cello soloist in this concerto represents,
at different moments, the four main angels shared in all three major
Middle Eastern monotheisms.
“It was pleasant … for me to think, despite the fact that we may never
achieve complete harmony here on Earth, that there could be a place
where the world’s peacemakers could find eternal harmony and peace
after death.”
Fairouz — at 30 he is the youngest composer in the 115-year history
of the Deutsche Grammophon label to have an album (Follow, Poet)
dedicated to his works — aims to promote harmony among people
through his support of the organization Bridges of Understanding. As
friendship developed between Beiser and Fairouz, she has participated
in a group event planned to enhance the relationship between the
United States and the Arab world.
The cellist, 50, who met Fairouz through a mutually known producer,
is debuting with the symphony but has appeared in Ann Arbor as part
of Bang on a Can All-Stars, an instrumental ensemble. She is a founding
member who enjoys spotlighting contemporary musical forms in inno-
vative ways.
“I grew up in a very artistic kibbutz, and everybody started to play an
instrument,” says Beiser, married to psychiatrist Rami Kaminski and the
mother of a pre-med student and aspiring actress, both educated at a
Jewish day school.
“We had auditions to determine musical talents, and they said I
should play the violin. I was a rebel, and I asked about the cello because
nobody in the kibbutz played one. I also loved its sound.”