About
A 5,000-year-old musical tradition from the heart of Mesopotamia lives on in Albuquerque with renowned Iraqi oud virtuoso Rahim AlHaj. A former Iraqi political prisoner who made a harrowing escape from Baghdad in 2000, AlHaj’s music evokes the experience of exile and new beginnings. “The music contains the drive for the message of peace and compassion and love,” says AlHaj, a 2015 recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship, the nation’s highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.
The short-necked, fretless, Arabian lute called the oud is central to Iraqi music. Traditional Iraqi music is organized into a series of maqamat, or modes. Each maqam has a distinctive scale made up of several pitches and specific melodic formulae, often associated with a certain mood or season. Unlike western music, which is based on whole and half tones (12 semitones altogether), Iraqi music is based on 24 quarter tones.
Studying under the legendary Munir Bashir and Salim Abdul Kareen at Baghdad’s Conservatory of Fine Arts from the age of nine, Rahim emerged as one of the world’s foremost oudists. But AlHaj’s refusal to write music in praise of Saddam Hussein got him into trouble. His composition entitled “Why,” based on a poem by a friend who was wounded in the Iran-Iraq War, landed him in prison. He was tortured and beaten. Rahim’s mother sold almost all of her belongings to fund his escape.
In 2000, AlHaj was granted political asylum in the United States, landing in Albuquerque, where he got a job as a $6-an-hour security guard. Missing his world, AlHaj rented a music hall and organized his first U.S. solo concert. It was a sell out. Today, AlHaj’s artistry receives worldwide attention. He has collaborated with the likes of guitarist Bill Frisell, sarod player Amjad Ali Khan, and indie-rockers REM. His solo work has won two Grammy® awards.
Videos:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ7XkSlqyYE
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R7JZbydqVk
An interview with Rahim AlHaj:
www.rootsworld.com/interview/rahim.shtml