Barzakh Festival: Boom.Diwan with Nduduzo Makhathini

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Curated and presented by the NYU Arts Center Abu Dhabi: Music rooted in Khaleeji pearl-diving traditions meets South African jazz in this online concert and artist talk.

For this performance, Boom.Diwan will collaborate with and feature special guest pianist Nduduzo Makhathini, the first South African musician signed to the legendary Blue Note Records. The two are composing a suite that will be performed as an immersive ritual of music, the visual, and dance that takes into account ideas about the self, the community, and the spiritual in the face of modernity. The music touches on ideas of cosmopolitanism, community, dialogue, and healing.

Founded by applied ethnomusicologist Ghazi Al-Mulaifi, Boom.Diwan is a collaborative global jazz ensemble that revives the cosmopolitan tradition of the Kuwaiti pearl-diving music of the Indian Ocean trade. With influences spanning Zanzibar to Calicut, and improvisation, fluidity, and dialogue at its core, Boom.Diwan includes Al-Mulaifi on vocals, percussion, and electric guitar and members of the Mayouf Mejally Ensemble, who are among the oldest and most widely respected pearl-diving music ensembles in Kuwait and the GCC. For this performance, they will be joined by Steven Bedford (NOON) on electric bass and Claude Cozens on drum kit. 

This residency is presented with support from the US Embassy in Abu Dhabi.