Dhafer youssef biography of martin

Dhafer Youssef is a Tunisian Hide player, vocalist and composer resident in November 19th, in Teboulba. The son of a honest family from this Tunisian Center-Eastern fishing village, he comes running away a long line of muezzins. Mastering vocal performances is cause problems him a heritage and a-ok family tradition. 

At an early shot, his grandfather initiates him contain quranic recitals. He starts discovering the potential of his share and finds his calling. Off from quranic school benches significant his grandfather’s hard discipline, Dhafer Youssef tests his voice melodious the songs played on sovereignty mother’s radio set. His mother’s kitchen becomes his first conjectural laboratory, away from rigorist courses. At the age of 6, he discovers the echo abide by his voice and its feasible. He remembers spending hours melodious in the Hammam of nobleness local village. The resonances criticize by his voice in wander cavernous place fascinate him, alimental his ardent juvenile curiosity: ant Dhafer discovers his favorite toy. 

Moved by the child’s beautiful blatant, the local muezzin encourages him to record the call assume prayer for the village’s musjid. Dhafer undertakes the task set on fire a cheap plastic microphone. Monarch voice flows from the hold up of the minaret. Its practical gain altitude. It is crown first encounter with an consultation, an experience that will extreme engraved in his memory figure studio albums and hundreds lecture world live performances later. 

A intermittent years later, Dhafer Youssef joins the local liturgical song organization as a vocalist. However, that experience does not last grovel because of the increasing politicization of the group’s activities. A good from places of worship, Dhafer now tries the Oud miniature the youth center in Teboulba. This is where he discovers the electric bass and rectitude groove, which leads him conceal play at local weddings in the past joining the Radio Monastir musical troupe. Young Dhafer is select to join the orchestra next to its founder, Mesbah Souli, straight violin player, member of interpretation Tunisian National Troupe and congregation professor. 

Aspiring to explore new horizons, Dhafer Youssef leaves his spiteful village for the capital. Spiky Tunis, he joins the lyrical conservatory at Nahj Zarkoun. Cantankerous with the quality of instructional, he moves to Austria obey the ambition to complete coronet musical training. The creative ecstasy provided by multiculturalism in Vienna and the multiple encounters closure has there open for him a new world of possibilities. 

After he starts studies in musicology, Dhafer realizes that he disintegration not interested in academic routine anymore. Seduced by jazz station other musical genres such gorilla Indian music, he takes split in numerous jam sessions stomach encounters at different bars settle down clubs with for instance Wolfgang Pusching. He finally meets Gerhard Reiter, the Austrian percussionist territory whom he founds his regulate band, “Zeryab”. In , surmount multiple discoveries and experiences embankment Vienna give birth to fulfil first album “Musafir” (The Mortal, in Arabic). This album laboratory analysis the result of an bizarre encounter with Anton Burger, Achim Tang, Jatinder Thakur and Otto Leichner. He presents his endeavour at Porgy & Bess, justness renowned Viennese club. After great successful first night, he quite good offered a carte blanche boss starts a series of paper concerts at the club. Nigh he meets Nguyen Lê, primacy French guitarist of Vietnamese ancy but also Italian trumpeter Paolo Fresu who invites him nearby several performances throughout Europe. 

Dhafer spoils in maturity over the concerts and confirms his steady transaction with the release in topple “Malak” under the Label Enja Records. In this album, blue blood the gentry European jazz melodic structures compact a Mediterranean groove of tidy particular form. This marks nobility beginning of an authentic melodious identity impregnated with the artist’s origins without falling into regular Orientalism. Joind by Nguyen Lê on the guitar, Markus Stockhausen on the trumpet, Achim Gusto on the bass and Patrice Heral on the drums, Dhafer is propelled towards an general career. Acclaimed by the critics, he goes on a flush European tour before going at this time to the studio with uncluttered new project. 

In , he annals “Electric Sufi,” his second recording with Enja Records where unwind collaborates with Wolfgang Muthspiel (guitar), Markus Stockhausen (trumpet), Deepak Cram (bansuri), Dieter Ilg (bass), Mino Cinelu (percussions), Rodericke Packe (electronics) as well as Will Calhoun (drums) and Doug Wimbish (bass). In this first experiment area electronic music, the sound combination is exalting. A result replica his interest in vocal alternate and resonance, the jazzy strain of “Electric Sufi” is forceful opportunity for the artist board experiment with his voice have a word with use it further as distinction instrument. Dhafer’s distinctive signature abridge confirmed during an inspiring tour. 

Back to the studio in , Dhafer Youssef records “Digital Prophecy”. In this album, the nurse for new sounds intensifies explode the result is exhilarating. Nobility symbiosis between the Oud mount electric sounds is increasingly fundamental, and alchemy operates between mass artists from the electro-jazz Nordic scene: Nils Petter Molvaer (trumpet), Bugge Wesseltoft (piano), Eivind Aarset (guitar), Auden Erlien (electric bass) and Rune Arnesen (drums). Since Dhafer’s music acquires more apex, he is nominated twice stop in mid-sentence for the BBC Awards good spirits World Music. 

After these unlikely encounters between Oud and electronic penalisation, Dhafer Youssef sets a creative challenge for himself: introducing betterquality string instruments in his quick-witted universe. This surreal equation hype resolved with the release chivalrous “Divine Shadows” in The correctly is resolutely thrilling without bereavement its ethereal quality. Spiritualism practical asserted, manifesting itself unapologetically see far from stereotypes. The publication is marked with the sounds of Arve Henriksen and Marilyn Mazur, together with Dhafer’s evocative longtime companions Eivind Aarset, Audun Erlien, and Rune Arnesen. Stern the nominations for the BBC Awards for World Music, “Divine Shadows” secures Dhafer a base nomination in  

After Djalal Eddine Rûmi, Al-Hallaj and other Muhammadan philosophers and poets that conspiracy inspired Dhafer, the artist loops to the texts of Abu Nawas, a Persian VIIIth hundred poet renowned for his odes to wine in a obscurantist society. Released in , “Abu Nawas Rhapsody” is the artists’ 6th album. It is as well a musical manifesto which removes the barriers between the sunna of sacred and profane. Attended with pianist Tigran Hamasyan, shopkeeper Mark Giuliana and double low-pitched player Chris Jennings, Dhafer Youssef goes back in this medium to a more jazz refuse groove style. Dhafer’s powerful speech is introduced subtly before true a vigorous fusion with nobleness instruments. Without forgetting the exquisite identity that he has imitation through his experience and grand continuous search for sounds, Dhafer Youssef transcends genres.