Matinee: Amir ElSaffar New Quartet

The Birth of Beauty from the Spirit of Immediacy: In 2023, American trumpeter, santur player, singer, and composer Amir ElSaffar, Norwegian saxophonist Ole Mathisen, Greek pianist Tania Giannouli, and American drummer Tomas Fujiwara came together in Berlin. For two days, they worked on newly composed pieces, culminating in a memorable concert in the Pierre Boulez Hall: Against the harmonically shimmering cluster foundation of the microtonally tuned grand piano and Fujiwara’s polyphonic rhythms, an intense dialogue unfolds between trumpet and saxophone, rich in nuance, depth, and resonance. Delicate solos and contemplative movements, organic jazz, and Middle Eastern sound sketches (ElSaffar is a renowned expert on Arabic maqam music) create structures so densely interwoven that one can perhaps still sense the individual threads but can hardly isolate them anymore—as if these four musicians had been waiting just to artfully weave their talents together.