Posted June 4 on Reuters is a report on a concert the previous day at London’s Barbican Center by the El Gusto Orchestra of Algiers, featuring “a popular style of music traditionally performed by Jewish and Muslim musicians. Some of the elderly members of the 25-piece Algerian orchestra used to perform together in a music class in the 1940s, when Jews and Muslims shared a peaceful existence … The group’s tale became the subject of a 2012 documentary entitled ‘El Gusto’ by Algerian-Irish director Safinez Bousbia, who tracked down and reunited the surviving members of the original Chaabi music class … Concertgoers said they were attracted by the orchestra’s positive message … Although Chaabi was rooted in Algeria, it is an important part of Jewish music heritage, said [Gil] Karpas [of the Jewish Music Institute at the University of London]. ‘It’s one of the threads in the music seam of the Jewish story. Jews lived [in Algeria]. They contributed, they brought their own liturgical, musical styles and also their own folk styles into that, and they were part of the creative engine that contributed to the music that we’re about to see,’ said Karpas.”
Posted June 6, 2013
