Anouar Brahem

The Tunisian oud virtuoso Anouar Brahem performed together with the pianist Francois Couturier and the accordionist Jean-Louis Matinier at Beirut's Music Hall on two consecutive evenings, as Kaelen Wilson-Goldie reports in The Daily Star . They played the suite "Le Voyage de Sahar" from an album which Brahem had released last year. There is no purity in music any more, Brahem says, because in the modern world you can hear and sea so many things. That is the reason why in the arts it is most important to be yourself. He composes by developing short themes out of his improvisations. When composing, the oud is his pen.