Artist-in-Residence Amir ElSaffar: Jazz Musician in New York

About Artist-in-Residence Amir ElSaffar

Artist-in-Residence Amir ElSaffar is a trumpeter, vocalist, and composer whose work sits between experimental and free jazz and the modal systems of Arabic maqam. At National Sawdust in New York City, he presents projects that treat concert performance as a site for long-form structure and close listening. His concert version of *Ruins أطلال: A Maqam Opera in Arabic* brings together jazz language, classical architecture, and Arabic text in a single frame. The writing favors timbral detail and intervallic nuance over spectacle.