Cleveland State Community College presents The Qadim Ensemble on Tuesday, Feb. 20 at 1 p.m. in the George R. Johnson Cultural Heritage Center.
Acclaimed for their passionate performances, The Qadim Ensemble is comprised of accomplished and acclaimed musicians. The San Francisco based band has attracted a growing global audience who are responding to their authentic musicianship and timely message.
Qadim is word found in both Arabic and Hebrew meaning ‘ancient’ as well as ‘that which will come.’ Their reportoire includes Arabic, Jewish, Turkish Sufi, Hebrew-Yemenite, Armenian, Ladino and Moroccan music, celebrating the common musical and spiritual heritage of the region’s cultures, while honoring the great diversity found within them.
Eliyahu Sills has been performing music for over 20 years on multiple instruments, including bansuri (the bamboo flute of India), and Turkish and Arabic ney (the reed flute of the middle east) upright bass, electric bass, and oud. In the early 1990s, he studied upright bass at The New School for Jazz in New York City. Influenced by teachers Makanda Ken McIntyre, Arnie Lawrence and Reggie Workman (bassist who played with John Coltrane and Art Blakey), Eliyahu began performing as a sideman and bandleader in renowned jazz clubs such as The Village Gate and Small's.
After leaving NYC, he began his studies of North Indian music on the Bansuri under the G.S. Sachdev, and began performing Middle Eastern music on the ney, which he studied in Instanbul, Turkey with Neyzen Omer Erdogdular and Neyzen Ahmet Kaya, in Morocco with Akdii Abdelsalaam, and in Israel with Itamar Shachar. He currently performs throughout the country with his critically acclaimed band, The Qadim Ensemble, (QadimMusic.com) whose CD reached Number Seven on Billboard's World Music charts, as well as collaborating with many acclaimed musicians.
Registering for this event is not required; however, it will ensure a seat for the program and registrants will automatically be added to Cleveland State’s email list to be notified for future events. For more information, visit the website at http://mycs.cc/qadim or email events@clevelandstatecc.edu.