Karim Sulayman & Sean Shibe: Broken Branches

"[Broken Branches is] an eclectic album built on friendship which explores the performers’own sense of identity memory diaspora often in their own arrangements.”

The Guardian

"Shibe brings a lively charisma and a vibrant array of musical colour to [Broken Branches]…with Sean Shibe you can always expect the unexpected but there’s nothing frivolous about this boundary-pushing musician.”

BBC Music Magazine

MUSICAL EXPLORATION OF MIXED IDENTITIES

In his Hong Kong début American tenor Karim Sulayman and Scottish guitarist Sean Shibe present Broken Branches a conceptual recital that explores the cultural and musical ties between the East and the West. The programme ranges from Monteverdi and Purcell to Britten and Middle East folk songs exploring music that ties in with the artists’ mixed identity as they each grew up in the West (United States and Scotland) but with ethnic roots in the East (Lebanon and Japan). 

The album “Broken Branches” was nominated for a 2024 Grammy award for the Best Classical Vocal Solo Album and has toured in the US to great acclaim.

Karim Sulayman has garnered international attention as a sophisticated and versatile artist winning a Grammy Award for Classical Solo Vocal in 2019. Guitarist Sean Shibe brings a fresh and innovative approach to both the electric and traditional classical guitar and has won two OPUS Klassik Awards (2021 & 2023) and two Gramophone Awards (2019 & 2021) for his originality and virtuosity. This is their first collaboration together.  

Programme

PURCELL Music for a While

DOWLAND Praeludium

DOWLAND Fantasia

DOWLAND Time Stands Still

CACCINI Dalla porta d’oriente

MONTEVERDI Si dolce è’l tormento

MONTEVERDI La mia turca

TRADITIONAL La prima vez (arr. Sulayman & Shibe)

TRADITIONAL Lamma bada Yatathanna (arr. Shibe)

DARWISH El Helwa Di

RODRIGO/FAIRUZ Li Beirut

HARVEY Sufi Dance

CHAKER A butterfly in New York

TAKEMITSU In the woods: Wainscot pond

BRITTEN Songs from the Chinese

Host or Publisher PPHK Premiere Performances of HK