Ali Omar El-Farouk: Oud and Guitar Player and Teacher

Ali Omar El-Farouk is an Egyptian and Canadian oud guitar player, composer and teacher. Ali plays his oud and three other instruments during this fascinating conversation in which we talked about learning from a place of joy, connecting across cultures through music, languages, architecture, Istanbul, Spain, Umm Kulthum, Nubian music, jazz, and lots more. The link for the video version and transcript: https://www.leahroseman.com/episodes/ali-omar-el-farouk

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https://aliomarelfarouk.com/

photo: Joshua Hansen

Timestamps:

(00:00:00) Intro

(00:01:50) Ali’s background in architectural engineering, coming to Montreal to study jazz

(00:02:57) early music lessons piano and guitar

(00:07:55) about the oud, with improvisation

(00:16:50) Ali’s time in Spain studying flamenco and introduction to “Nostalgia Esperanzadora”

(00:29:31) Ali’s composition “Nostalgia Esperanzadora” for oud and flamenco guitar

(00:38:21) vibrato and different expressive techniques on the oud, about the risha and different types of plectrums

(00:46:28) Arab architecture, Alhambra, traveling in Southern Spain

(00:52:20) learning Spanish, Turkish and communicating through music

(00:55:29) bringing musicians to Egypt, Mike de Masi, Thomas Durant, Freddy Rizk, Hamza El Din, Nubian music

(01:02:47) Umm Kulthum

(01:09:13) Ali’s musicial influences, learning Arabic music, Anouar Brahem, Simon Shaheen

(01:14:55) 2011 pro-democracy protests in Cairo

(01:21:07) different Arabic dialects, Arabic community in Montreal

(01:24:25) Turkey, trip to Istanbul

(01:29:45) album Ela Mataa, Joseph Khoury

(01:36:12) demonstration of frame drum and history of the frame drum

(01:41:08) Montreal jazz scene

(01:44:48) teaching

(01:47:21) Joseph Tawadros, Cengiz Sarikus

(01:49:26) intro to Naima by John Coltrane on electric guitar

(01:53:38) Ali’s advice about practicing and learning music