Fasil

“Fasıl” is the ECM debut album of guitarist Marc Sinan, imaginatively juxtaposing Western and Oriental musical ideas, “like rosaries and Tesbihs” (the prayer beads of Islam), in a project very much connected to his own biography. Son of a Turkish-Armenian mother and a German father, Sinan has grown up with a strong sense of both cultures. He came to idea of the “Fasıl” project in a period when he had been playing passacaglias by Biber, Couperin, Bach and Silvius Leopold Weiss, and wanted to “create a bridge to Islamic music. The impetus came from musical associations, the feeling that in historical performance practise we basically imitate the approach and expression of improvising musicians beyond cultural borders and time periods.”

Rather than combining or contrasting existing music of East and West, Sinan and his librettist Marc Schiffer chose to create something new, relaying in words and music the story of Aisha bint Abi Bakr (613-678), last wife of the Prophet Mohammed. “Fasıl” is a musical character study of an impressive woman, the story of “a transition from innocent beauty to prophet’s closest confidante, to political leader, military leader, and finally to ‘Mother of Believers’, as she was praised by the Sunnis.”

Marc Schiffer’s texts take as source materials fragments of the Quran and Hadith (Traditions of the life of the Prophet) and “ancient Persian poems which refer to the humanitarian core that connects Islam and Christianity with one another.”

Schiffer’s song lyrics were forwarded to German pianist/composer Julia Hülsmann, without any additional information regarding characters and story line; her brief was to respond emotionally/intuitively to the texts. Then, to broaden the project’s scope still further, Sinan travelled to Turkey. “I met a very open and helpful imam, Kamil Hodja, who agreed to improvise for me in the makam tradition, thus presenting many Quran suras whose texts interested me.” Sinan recorded Hidja’s improvisations, and transcriptions of them became the basis of new music heard here as “Sura 6/51” and “Sura 81 Taksimi”.

The ensemble assembled to play this music has at its core Julia Hülsmann’s widely-experienced trio with bassist Marc Muellbauer and Heinrich Köbberling. Hülsmann and Muellbauer have been working together since 1996, and Köbberling joined Julia’s trio in 2001; their own ECM album “End of a Summer” was highly acclaimed by both and press and public. The frontline of the “Fasıl” project features the strongly contrasting characters of singer Yelena Kuljić, violist Lena Thies and Sinan himself.

Yelena Kuljić delivers a compellingly idiosyncratic performance as Aisha. Character roles are amongst her specialities. Since 2003 the Serbian-born singer has been based in Berlin where she has featured in music-theatre productions at the Maxim Gorki Teater, the Schaubuhne and the Sophiensaele. Currently her co-starring role in David Marton’s new staging of “Lulu” (an adaptation freely based on Alban Berg’s and Frank Wedekind’s vesions) at the Schauspiel Hannover is drawing much attention, with major reviews in the German daily press. In January 2009, The Frankfurter Rundschau called her “the most thrilling jazz voice of the current scene.”

Violist Lena Thies has performed with the Orchester der Komischen Oper Berlin and other ensembles. She belongs – as does Sinan - to the growing number of ‘classical’ players intrigued by improvisation. Marc praises her “exuberant curiosity” in his liner notes.