Duo al Roo7 — Of the Sorrow Songs

Race Brook Lodge hosts an evening with Duo al Roo7 which pairs Palestinian multi-instrumentalist Zafer Tawil with oud player Rabi Zaki Asher. The duo will will share a set of sorrow songs, traditional and new, that give voice to the brokenness and yearnings of these days. The textures and aesthetics of shared poetry, the musical modes of Arabic maqam and memory create vessels of song tender and wide. A refuge of contemplation and stillness that makes space to go deep in a time of trouble.

Songs from the queens of the Arabic canon, Fairouz and Oum Kulthum, stretch between the sorrows of their days and everyone’s, alongside folk songs, sufi poems and melodies, as well as new compositions the two performers have written together. In welcoming the truth and grief of one another, Duo Al Roo7 make room for new sounds to emerge.

Jerusalem-born Zafer Tawil is fluent on the violin, oud, qanun, percussion and nay. He is one of the most in-demand musicians of the Brooklyn Arabic music community, Race Brook Lodge says, and he is one of the most joyful. Rabi Zaki Asher studied the oud and Arabic maqam with Lebanese master Bassam Saba for many years. He is the creative director of the Temenos Center for the Arts, a New York 501c3, and has been a vocal supporter of Palestinian liberation.

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