Artist-in-Residence Amir ElSaffar presents Ruins أطلال: A Maqam Opera in Arabic (Concert Version)
About This Event
At National Sawdust, artist-in-residence Amir ElSaffar presents the concert version of Ruins أطلال: A Maqam Opera in Arabic. ElSaffar is a trumpeter, vocalist and composer whose work straddles experimental and free jazz and the modal discipline of Arabic maqam. His concert projects favor long-form structure, close listening, timbral detail and intervallic nuance, joining jazz language, classical architecture and Arabic text.
About Ruins أطلال: A Maqam Opera in Arabic (Concert Version)(opera)
At National Sawdust, Artist-in-Residence Amir ElSaffar presents *Ruins أطلال: A Maqam Opera in Arabic (Concert Version)*, performed by ElSaffar. The work treats opera as a meeting point for Arabic maqam practice, classical form, and the open methods of experimental and free jazz, with trumpet and voice at the center. In a city where Arab music is often heard in clubs or community settings rather than on opera terms, the concert reframes that tradition inside a contemporary New York venue. Its most telling feature is how improvisation is built into the architecture, not added as ornament.
About the Artists
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.
Amir ElSaffar
Amir ElSaffar is a trumpeter, vocalist, and composer whose work moves between experimental and free jazz and the modal discipline of Arabic maqam. At New York City’s National Sawdust, he has appeared as an artist-in-residence and in projects such as Inner Spaces with electronic composer Lorenzo Bianchi Hoesch, where microtonal detail and studio electronics sit side by side.