Louis C. Elson Lecture: Samir Odeh-Tamimi

Samir Odeh-Tamimi’s vivid and rhythmically intense musical language reveals an archaic power at times. Born in Jaljulia near Tel Aviv in 1970 and enthusiastic about both European classical music and the aesthetics of New Music, the composer came to Germany at the age of 22 and studied musicology and composition. In addition to engaging with compositional role models such as Giacinto Scelsi and Iannis Xenakis, he became increasingly involved with Arabic music during this time. His intensive research into the history of the ancient Orient and ancient Greece has since inspired his music more and more.

Samir Odeh-Tamimi’s works are regularly performed at renowned festivals and concert halls throughout Europe, and he has received commissions from Deutschlandfunk, Saarländischer Rundfunk, Donaueschinger Musiktage, the European Center for the Arts Hellerau, WDR and Bayerischer Rund-funk/musica viva. In 2010, his music theatre piece Leila und Madschnun had its world premiere at the Ruhrtriennale in Bochum. As part of the project into Istanbul, initiated by the Ensemble Modern and the Siemens Arts Program in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut, he composed a piece for Ensemble Modern in 2008 inspired by his stay in the Turkish metropolis. In recent years, Samir Odeh-Tamimi has also worked in close collaboration with the Boulanger Trio and Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart. The singers have since travelled to the composer’s birthplace, his parents’ home near Tel Aviv, to discover his musical roots in preparation for a new work to be premiered at Stuttgart’s Eclat Festival.

For this Louis C. Elson Lecture, Samir Odeh-Tamimi will discuss his second opera, L'Apocalypse Arabe. In this music theatre work, the Israeli-Palestinian composer Samir Odeh-Tamimi turns to a significant contemporary Lebanese work. Created in 1975 and based on events at the time, the collection The Arab Apocalypse by the painter and poet Etel Adnan offers a gripping depiction of the civil war in Lebanon. This work—a virulent denunciation of crimes that sprung from intolerance—is like no other, and profoundly touched and inspired Samir Odeh-Tamimi and the Franco-Lebanese stage director Pierre Audi. Together, they strove to give these songs, interspersed with mysterious drawings, the form of musical theatre, which could highlight both the actual events and their universality. The Arab Apocalypse was already prophetic when it was written and continues to provide visionary insight into the hardships that Lebanon faces today.

Host or Publisher Harvard University Music Department