Maurice El Medioni - A Memoir : A Memoir

Maurice El Medioni - A Memoir : A Memoir
ISBN: 9781910924426
Publication Date: 17 May 2017

Undoubtedly great music outlives the musicians who create it. But octogenarian greats such as John Lee Hooker or Cuba's Buena Vista Social Club outlive the initial popularity of their musical genre and then decades later it is their late careers that make the music live on and catch fire to new generations, audiences and markets across the globe, as musical currents and tides, like the 1960's UK blues boom or the 1990's (and still continuing) world music phenomenon, work their unpredictable magic.

The Algerian Jewish master of PianOriental, Maurice El Medioni, will turn 88 this year. His innovative piano style, indomitable spirit and the turbulent panorama of his long career in Algerian chaabi and rai music has followed a similar trajectory. The music should have stopped or at least petered out several times for personal, political and historic reasons. But instead he has become a revered and iconic artist in world music, though in fact even 20 years ago he was largely a forgotten and unknown figure.

About the Authors

Maurice El Medioni (born on 18 October 1928 in Oran, French Algeria) is a French-Algerian pianist, composer and interpreter of Andalusian, Rai, Sephardic and Arab music. Jonathan Walton is a composer, performer, writer, researcher and translator who has worked extensively on the stage, in the studio and in print. He has a BA/MA (Oxon) in Russian and French; studied Ethnomusicology with Hungarian at London University's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS); and studied Hebrew and Arabic in Jerusalem for 2 years.

Max Reinhardt is a presenter of BBC Radio 3's Late Junction. He has also been a columnist, reviewer and feature writer for UK music magazines Straight No Chaser, Songlines and fRoots, edited and compiled Celebrating Sanctuary: Conversations with Refuge...