Zach Brock, the critically acclaimed jazz violinist, described the 14th Cairo Jazz Festival, which ends on November 4, as “really diverse”.
“It draws from all kinds of different styles of jazz from all over the world,” Brock said.
Zach Brock and Steve Sandberg are giving some concerts here and in Alexandria on their first tour in Egypt.
“This is my first time in Egypt and I had no conception of Egypt before I came, and it is a beautiful experience. I like the spirit of people of Cairo, it’s just lovely,” Steve Sandberg, three time Emmy-nominated composer/pianist told The Egyptian Gazette.
As for Brock, he described his trip to Egypt as “profound”.
The twosome will be giving a concert with Egyptian jazz band Eftekasat, which was formed in 2001.
Brock said one of the reasons he chose a career in music was not only because of his love for music – obviously that was first.
“But I specifically wanted to be a performer, because I wanted to have experiences like this – travel around the world and to go to places and be with people playing music and feel that intimate way that even if you don’t speak the same language to communicate you get a sense of the person after he plays a piece of music or after they teach you a piece of music,” Brock said.
For Brock, there is no such thing as a language barrier. “I think that as soon as we play music we pretty quickly figure out how it’s going to work,” he said.
Brock and Sandberg brand of jazz is a blend of classical jazz with improvisation.
“What is modern jazz or modern rock music, to me, and I think to most of the musicians that we play with, it’s everything that happened in the past and what’s going on right now, so the way I play, I actually think it’s very traditional, but it’s the tradition of being a contemporary jazz musician.”
Sandberg and Brock are familiar with Egyptian music as they listened to it by chance in the US and fell in love with it.
“I’m a huge Umm Kulthoum fan and I discovered her many years ago. I don’t even remember how, and it is odd because it was even before YouTube,” Sandberg said.
“I’m always very interested in music from all over the world and when I heard Umm Kulthoum, I just said: ‘O My God, this is unlike anything I have ever heard’,” said.
Brock first listen to Egyptian music was when he was in a restaurant in New York. “I’m not familiar with Arab music but found this really advanced awesome violin playing … and that how I was introduced to the incredible role of the violin in the Egyptian music,” Brock said.
“And I’m here as a student, I’m open to any exchanges that can happen between me and Egyptian musicians,” he added.
AUC hosts Jazz festival concerts
Brock and Sandberg have performed some of their concerts at the Tahrir Cultural Centre, at the American University in Cairo (AUC) Tahrir Square Campus downtown Cairo.
“One of our missions at the AUC is to bring US musicians and artists to Egypt and currently. We are hosting the jazz festival which is happening here and brings people from all over the world to the AUC and Egypt,” said James Ketterer, Dean of School of Continuing Education.
Ketterer added that Brock and Sandberg are here not only to perform but also to give workshops.
“They did workshops with local musicians in Alexandria because in addition to being fantastic musicians they are world class educators, and this is at the center of what we do at the AUC and at the centre of what we do at the school of continuing education,” he said.
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