Cygnus Ensemble

The Struggles and Triumphs of Mohammed Fairouz

Mohammed Fairouz with his
modernist master Gunther Schuller.

Mohammed Fairouz is a precocious composer, born in the same year and the same month that Cygnus did its first concert at the Donnell Library.  That's to say that he's now reached a quarter-century.   He's a bit young to have triumphed in any way, yet he has, and I believe he is someone to watch.

Fairouz' struggles:

I can see why Fairouz identifies with Edward Said, who seems to have been a mentor.  I am not qualified to paraphrase Said, so this must be taken with a large grain of salt:  Said was fascinated by Adorno's adoption of musical principles as sociological metaphors--counterpoint, for example.  Said adopted such metaphors and enlarged them still further.  In so doing, there is an implied criticism of Adorno.  Adorno's sociology is a bit absolutist, or at least a bit narrow?   Said's vantage point from outside of Adorno's cosy tower in Frankfurt takes in all of the West's knowing and unknowing trampling over the rest of the world.  So Said was not so much interested in refuting Adorno.  He wanted to add a counterpoint to Adorno's positions.  Fairouz is uniquely situated to realize, (musically concretize)  if it's possible, the musical metaphors of Said & Adorno.

He has taught me something about my avowed interest in the dialogue that ensues *after* the issues of colonialism and neocolonialism are shunted aside (can they be resolved?)--I grope for words here--how can music continue to motivate educated people born into a position of material comfort to want to do all the work required to continue to create the oppulence that such music requires?   My dialogue has all the problems that Said points up in Adorno's dialogue.  And I believe Mohammed has made it clear that he avidly participates in this dialogue even while his vantage point takes in quite a bit more than what I can see from where I sit.   And so his work will enlarge and enhance my dialogue.

..... "music-begetting opulence comes at what cost? at what cost to others far away?"

We have talked about the extend to which both Christianity and Islam are colonial (Hellenistic) imports into Judaism, forced hybridizations with Judaism.   We've tried to fathom the extent  that Islam is a retrenchment from the first colonization.  We've asked "What is the gift to humanity that is Islam?".   With agree that with respect to those ancient colonial phenomena,  the West's later colonial and neo-colonial truck with the Arab world would be interesting if it hadn't become so bloody.

And therefor, I need (we need) people like Mohammed here in the U.S.  Sympathetic, *secular* ([great]grand)sons of Islam who can foster a constructive dialogue between the West and the rest of the world, people whose existence makes us recognize that there is a great plurality of intellectual positions in a vast Arabic world community, a vast Islamic and secular post-Islamic world community.

The struggle for Mohammed Fairouz is to create convincing music.  His struggle is to answer honestly the question, "Can music hold all this extramusical politics?".  Adorno was making abstract music *useful* in a way that  it wasn't exactly intended.  Is Mohammed trying to make politics into music in a way that isn't meaningful musically?  These are the issues he is struggling with.   His political dialogue is clear.  His musical talent is evident.  The two can't help but influence one another, yet they must each keep to their places too.  They can act on each other only in very sly and subtle ways.

Fairzouz's Triumphs:

M. Fairouz' triumph is knowingly locating himself in an interesting position with regard to all this.    As Said looked to the  Western modernist Adorno,  Fairouz sought out composer Gunther Schuller, one of the great American modernists, who became Fairouz's master in musical modernism.   Schuller will be contextual to the end, and his interest in American jazz suffuses his work with a distinctly American wit.  Yet this jazziness never compromises his music's integrity.

Fairouz'  Three Fragments of Ibn Khafajah was commissioned by Cygnus and performed by Cygnus at Bargemusic on February 26 of this year, where it was very enthusiastically received.   Clearly, the presence of Maqam in this work is analogous enough to the presence of Klezmer music in Mahler's first symphony, to the spirit of  Jazz in Schuller's music. The Fragments succeed as a performance of his situation with regard to the dialogue he shares with Edward Said.   His contextual maqam is well on its way to fruition.  He has 50 years, at least, to grow in that regard.  Fairouz quoted Schuller:  "Stick to the row.".   I repeat the admonishment, and I think Fairouz & I both agree that for us this means let the work have integrity and let it not sound like it has anything to do with rows; let it make references to vernacular music while still having great integrity.

Question:  Jazz, for Schuller is a connection to his native soil, and so is Maqam for Fairouz. How far does this anaolgy go when we think about it from Said's perspective?

--William Anderson