Tunisian musician Anouar Brahem and his International Quartet perform music from his latest album After the Last Sky and more at the National Concert Hall, Dublin on 2 November. We asked him the BIG questions . . .
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Anouar combines Arabic classical music, folk music and jazz and has been recording since the early 90s after finding acclaim in the late 80s.
The line-up for the NCH show is: Anouar Brahem: oud, Anja Lechner: cello, Django Bates: piano, and Mats Eilertsen: double bass.
Tell us three things about yourself . . .
I'm a Tunisian musician, deeply rooted in my culture yet curious about all the music of the world.
I play the oud, an ancestral instrument that has accompanied me since childhood and continues to open new paths for me.
And I believe that silence is an essential part of music.
How would you describe your music?
It’s always difficult - perhaps impossible - for me to define my music. To define it would be to confine it within something fixed, whereas creation is by nature movement and openness.
Listeners might say it lies somewhere between East and West, between tradition and improvisation, between writing and spontaneous expression - but for me, these worlds are never separate.
Above all, I seek the unexpected, sincerity, and emotion rather than a style or a category.
Who are your musical inspirations?
There are many. From the masters of Arabic and Ottoman music such as Sayed Darwich or Mohamed Abdelwahab, to Bach, Bill Evans, or Astor Piazzolla - and also poets and filmmakers who have nourished my imagination.
What was the first gig you ever went to?
It was in Tunis when I was a child - a concert of traditional music with the oud master Ali Sriti, who later became my teacher. That encounter left a deep mark on me.
What was the first record you ever bought?
If I remember well, it was an album by Mohamed Abdelwahab, the great Egyptian composer and singer.
His music, both refined and popular, has always fascinated me. He embodied that elegance of melody and that discipline in composition that I deeply admire.
What’s your favourite song right now?
Lately, I’ve been listening often to Prologue: Chorus of Exiled Palestinians by John Adams, from his opera The Death of Klinghoffer.
It’s a work of rare intensity - both moving and profoundly human. The music carries a collective emotion, a contained cry, where beauty and pain merge.
Favourite lyric of all time?
Probably Avec le temps by Léo Ferré, the great French singer and poet. "Avec le temps… va, tout s’en va." It’s a song of disarming truth - simple yet infinitely profound. It speaks of time passing, of loss and detachment - universal themes expressed with both restraint and deep intensity.
If you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Perhaps the Gymnopédies or Gnossiennes by Erik Satie. A work that never ages - timeless, disarmingly simple. Each note seems suspended in time, between melancholy and light. It’s a music that breathes, that leaves space for silence, and that continues to move me deeply.
Where can people find your music/more information?
All my albums are released on ECM Records, Available, among others, on streaming platforms.
Alan Corr
