#tarek shamma

[fashionlandscapeblog]

Tarek Shamma

La Folie Louboutin, Portugal, 2021

Photo: Clement Vayssieres

[upstairsdownstairsandinbetween]

La Folie, Melides, Portugal,

Tarek Shamma Architect,

Lighting Engineer: Erick Helaine,

Photos: Clement Vayssieres.

[sinceagain]

[dustedmagazine]

Listed: Atlas Maior

Atlas Maior combines progressive jazz, Middle Eastern, Latin American and Indian music traditions in original songs that nod to tradition without being confined by it. Led by Joshua Thomson (alto saxophone, flutes) and Josh Peters (oud, lavta), the band will be releasing its next album, Hadal, in early 2023. Here is some of the music that inspires them.

Marcel Khalife—Taqasim

Khalife's song "Achikain" is currently featured during live Atlas Maior settings. Here Taqasim is a rare example of Marcel performing in a trio setting. Marcel Khalife would come and play Arab Fest in my hometown of Dearborn, MI. We were so fortunate to be able to host this Lebanese legend in our backyard. 

Amir Elsaffar + Hyper

ElSaffar's work, approach, and sound has influenced the band for years. Fairly recently we've been in contact which has been incredible. He deserves every ounce of success that he receives with his phenomenal growing body of work. I also recommend the album Rivers of Sound. 

Karim Ziad

The Maghreb region has influenced Atlas Maior stretching back to before the inception of the group. Here we represent this with Ifrikya. In 2014, our composition "iddaa!" was accepted as part of a live art sound installation within Moroccan taxi cabs for the Marrakech Biennale 5 Art Festival. 

Ornette Coleman

Ornette! Ornette! Ornette! Our latest single Basalt is quite directly influenced by Ornette Coleman. Specifically ,the rubato melody we perform as the beginning melody. Also the fact that we have composed material incorporating two drum sets reminds me of his son Denardo Coleman. 

Anour Brahem

This is such a beautiful album by one of the greats of the oud. Here, Brahem teams up with Holland and Dejohnette on a truly special performance. All of Brahem's albums are fantastic. 

Tarek Yamani

Atlas Maior caught Yamani's La Merce 2019 Festival performance while we were also on tour in Spain. We were captivated by his approach to both Middle Eastern and Western jazz musical contexts. He is able to blend both approaches in such tasteful well thought out manner while demonstrating his command of both traditions. 

Naseer Shamma

Tablas (both Egyptian, and East Indian) have always been a component of Atlas Maior going back to the beginning of the group in 2009. Today we explore the instrument in several of our live settings as the Atlas Maior Tabla Trio, and in the larger quintet setting. Indian and Pakistani music traditions have always inspired us. This is a fine example of Middle Eastern oud, and East Indian tablas.

Ken Vandermark 

There are so many incredible Vandermark records, this one is just great also because of Atlas Maior's deep love of both Funkadelic and Sun Ra. I love the way he interprets these works in a trio setting. 

Omar Khorshid

A long-time influence on the band. Many never think of Khorshid's approach to the electric guitar. His story, music history, and body of work are legendary in the Middle East.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

Here I've selected a concert from Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, whom I was into probably five years before forming Atlas Maior. I remember walking around Ann Arbor, MI during a blizzard listening to this album. The legendary Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, definitely one of the world's most prolific voices in all of music history. 

[i-am-aprl]

Holding a map drawn by his uncle, aged 96, Maher Shamma, born in Al-Yarmouk Refugee Camp in Syria, arrived in Palestine as a U.S citizen this time in search for the family house in Acre.

The story started months ago when Maher told me that he intended to come to Palestine for the first time in his life looking for his family house in Acre. We had nothing to guide us except for some old pictures and word of mouth describing the house. The most important of which was a simple map drawn by Maher’s uncle, now in his nineties and a refugee in Jordan, four days before his arrival to the Occupied Territories. “You enter from Beirut-Haifa Street, half a kilometer from the West Sea. On the opposite side is the house of Abdul Fattah Al-Saadi. Our house is surrounded by tens of cypress trees.

It was almost impossible to rely on this map only. I used a British mandate map of Acre in an attempt to locate the house. We arrived in Acre and started our search in the so-called New Acre nowadays. Maps, photos and mixed feelings imposed by the city. I was struck by the strong intuition of Maher after a bit of loss; That Palestinian Syrian, born in the refugee camp, and who has never seen Palestine before: “Tarek, go left and then take the first right.” And I did.

There stood the house. We were then standing in front of the house of the deceased Moustafa Shamma. The 25 cypress trees surrounded the house from 3 sides. The entrance, the windows and the garden are just as described by his uncle, the refugee in Jordan. There stood Maher, amazed and in tears, sad and glad at the same time looking at his house in contemplation. The house has turned into a nursery under the Ministry of Education after being inhabited by an Israeli family right after Nakba. What left Maher feeling a bit at ease is that the nursery, called "גן ברושים'' meaning Cypress Nursery is open to the Arab kids of Acre.

In a complete coincidence, an elderly woman named Um Ihab Al-Shawish stopped us while we stood next to the house. She was a conscious child at the time of Nakba and remembers what happened well. She was able to figure out we were not from Acre from our dialect. Just like any other “Akkawi”, she insisted on having us over at her house overlooking the sea to “offer us a cold or hot drink in addition to lunch before even asking about our names”. As we were a bit tight on time, I told her that Maher was born in Al-Yarmouk Refugee Camp and was visiting his hometown for the first time… “love, Acre is honored to receive you. You are our people. What happened to us in 48 didn’t happen to anyone. They took everything from us. My relatives and uncles were displaced and are now in Lebanon. Uncle Munir is now in Sidon and we are still staying steadfast in Acre. Um Ihab didn’t stop to talk for ten consecutive minutes. I did not interrupt her as she was very enthusiastic and her memory was extremely sharp and active.

I asked her about the Shamma family. She replied: “there is their house; an Israeli family lived in it before it turned into a nursery. Right opposite to it is the house of Abdul Fattah Al-Saadi, it was demolished by the Jews”.

Um Ihab told us that she knew a woman from the Shamma family and together we went to see her to find out she was one of Maher’s relatives. She said her father stayed in Acre on behalf of the family to look after its properties until things get back to being calm. “We thought things would take a week only and then we would return to our homes. My father hardly stayed to take care of the houses and at the end everything was gone.”

Maher is one of million Palestinian refugees around the world. His house in Acre that fell on the 17th of May 1948 is one of 1125 houses that were taken over by Israel Land Authority in Acre and are now run by two state-owned housing companies; Amidar and Acre Development Company.

A right is never lost as long as someone is striving to claim it, even after 70 years, 39 days and 8 hours!

[mazenodeh57]

La Folie Louboutin | Tarek Shamma

[sirenofthequantum]

"Party tower" at Christian Louboutin's Melides property, photographed by Clément Vayssieres for the New York Times.

The structure was designed by Egyptian architect Tarek Shamma.

[practicingtheliberalarts]

This article evaluates whether Lawrence Venuti’s translation approach of “foreignisation” is likely to achieve his stated goal: translations that can resist cultural dominance. This is assessed in light of criticism of his approach from other translation scholars also concerned with cultural encounters and power relations: Maria Tymoczko, Mona Baker, Tarek Shamma and Michael Cronin. The article concludes that it is problematic to identify foreignisation and predict its effect. In spite of this, Venuti’s focus on the dangers of a one-sided privileging of fluent translation strategies is important and valuable, not least in the perspective of the internal cultural and linguistic struggles that will take place within the target culture.

[mazenodeh57]

La Salvada Louboutin | Tarek Shamma