WOMAD

JAADU

21:50 22nd April on the Stage South

Since their first concert in 2006, the intensity of human feeling and sheer musicality manifest in the meeting of these two artists has impacted globally. From the brilliant vocalisation of one hailed as a worthy successor to Nusrat to Titi Robin's chiselled chords, learned from the travelling community of Anjou, this musical dialogue with its strong gypsy savour links east and west in easy harmony. Both artists show themselves at once heirs of tradition and peerless innovators as well as conceptualists who are totally at ease in this interweaving of musical worlds.

Faiz Ali Faiz is one of the torchbearers of a tradition that goes back over 700 years, the tradition of Qawwali, the devotional music of the Sufis of Pakistan and India. Faiz Ali Faiz's ecstatically soaring vocal style and daring fusions transcend cultural, language and religious barriers and bring the devotional but vibrant vocal music of the Sufi mystics of the Islamic religion to the world.
Drawing on a rich vein of poetic imagery, Faiz Ali Faiz adds a twist to his music with an inspired fusion of Qawwali's traditional notes and scales and the harmonies of Flamenco music, creating a rich, inspirational blend, enhanced by the contrast between the two musical styles.

Thierry "Titi" Robin, is a self-taught musician who has created a musical world for himself by instinctively assimilating elements in response to his need to express himself. His distinctive, culture-crossing sound blends elements of Oriental and Andalucian music, mixing melodic improvisations and light-hearted rhythmical duels.

He brilliantly combines Flamenco guitar with Arabic oud and the dance music of Rajasthan's snake charmers to create a unique sound, drawing a personal musical vision from a mosaic of artists from Northern India to Andalusia, via the Balkans. A series of melodic and rhythmical motifs that follow on from one another, Titi Robin's music expresses emotions that words often have difficulty capturing - it speaks of the extreme solitude of the soul, the truth of heartfelt emotions through a blend of sounds and styles.
JAADU on myspace

Faiz Ali Faiz Biography

Nusrat's former understudy deserves his own limelight

WOMAD has always been a welcoming territory for qawwali singers. Not only was Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan a regular fixture of our gatherings for years and years, his nephews - leading Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali - are also no strangers to our stages. Faiz Ali Faiz also has direct links to the great man; not only did his harmonium-playing uncle also line up in Nusrat's group, Faiz had the pressure-heavy task of understudying for Nusrat whenever he was ill. Not that Faiz is a mere soundalike. Sure, his upwardly-spiralling vocal style owes a debt to Nusrat - after all, which qawwali singer isn't going to be compared to such a dominant icon? But Faiz is also someone keen to expand qawwali's boundaries, to explore the similar, if not shared, territory occupied by other styles from across the globe - these explorations include collaborations with both flamenco groups and with that freewheeling French troubadour Titi Robin.

(Biography written by Nige Tassell 2011)

Titi Robin Biography

Titi Robin believes in the universality of music, wanting his own songs to be heard "by those in love on a balcony of a council highrise or at the terrace of a bar on a Sunday morning". There's no reason it shouldn't be. Playing a variety of stringed instruments and influenced in equal measure by artists like flamenco icon Camaron and Iraqi oud maestro Munir Bachir, inspiration is drawn from far and wide - Andalusia, North Africa, the Middle East, India and anywhere there's a strong tradition of gypsy song. Ambivalent to the machinations of the music industry and its self-imposed classifications, Titi is happy to stay at the fringes, well away from the world music scene and the next flavour of the month. This approach means he can write, record and tour at his leisure, working to no-one else's beck and call. It also means his music can take him wherever it chooses, riding the air currents in search of new inspiration. More a timeless soul than a man out of time, Titi Robin is the free spirit we'd all like to be.

In a few words… Unblinkered, free-thinking French guitarist