Anouar Brahem - After the Last Sky

Tunisian oud player and composer Anouar Brahem presents After the Last Sky, a project built around a quartet with piano, cello and double bass, performed at the Barbican Hall in London.

The project takes its title from a line of verse by the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, which asks where the birds should fly once the last sky has gone. Anouar Brahem, a Tunisian oud player and composer from Tunis, born in 1957, has been active since 1991 in world music, Arabic music and jazz. The material presents the work as eight years after Blue Maqams and as a project shaped by the traditional modes of Arab music alongside influences from other cultures.

The quartet brings together Brahem's oud with the piano of British musician Django Bates, the cello of Anja Lechner and the double bass of Norwegian musician Mats Eilertsen, who joins the group for this tour. The arrangements give particular weight to the dialogue between cello and oud, and the musicians'close listening to one another shapes the melodies.

The programme is described as chamber pieces for an intimate yet international ensemble, drawing on a Tunisian and Arab musical base. The Barbican Hall is a London concert venue that hosts concerts and shows.