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ENSEMBLE INFO

Ensemble Contact:

Email:

tamsinlewis.violin@gmail.com

2001

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

We want to expand the Shore to Shore Project: an intercultural interfaith dialogue, and something that I feel is particularly important in these difficult times.
From 2010-2015, Passamezzo worked on the in collaboration with Moroccan Sufi musician Ahmed Abdelhak Elkaab (Abdou) and his group Ensemble Mogador Chant et Musique Soufie. We worked together to combine 16th and 17th Century English and European music with Moroccan Sufi chant, using words from Moslem and Christian scriptures and prayers.We have played together many times over the years, both in England and in Morocco, and have learned, and continue to learn, so much from each other.

Some information about the project
https://archive.reepinfo.org/shore-to-shore
And some videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYSRoHOoi-A&list=PL2xrnQOw2TwZildgQlti933YbIApp3c_1

We would like to expand the project in May 2026. We’ve found a wonderful Jewish early music singer in the Kol Echad choir, and hope to bring Abdou over to England so that we can work with three faiths together in song. There are so many things that we want to do: having combined the Lord’s Prayer with the Call to Prayer, it would be great to have the Shema sung over both; singing Salamone Rossi’s Hebrew psalms (5 voices and continuo), with Abdou singing an equivalent prayer in Arabic; Modern Hebrew rounds (the repetitive nature of rounds, like Taize chant, fits well with Sufi chant); and developing and consolidating existing repertoire.

We are planning concerts, workshops and services in London (St John’s Wood Church), Oxford (tbc but probably Pembroke College), Cambridge (Fitzwilliam College) and,Coventry Cathedral. And, if funds allow, to record some of the new material.

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