Gamal Abdel-Rahim

About

Gamal Abdel-Rahim is one of Egypt’s most prominent composers. His music has been performed in many European countries, the U.S., Russia, and the Middle East. He has written large scale orchestral works, choral works, chamber music, and art songs, among others. Besides teaching, he started his creative work as a composer, beginning a long search for an individual idiom that reconciles the essence of traditional music with contemporary western techniques. He achieved in his music a clear synthesis of Arab/Egyptian folk and traditional music with techniques of 20th century western music. His personal style is based on traditional modal melodies, with their characteristic intervals, such a the augmented second and diminished fourth. He favors polyphonic textures, even in his works in Arab microtonal modes. He utilizes many irregular complex rhythmic modes of Arab music, and his orchestral pieces utilize folk percussion instruments, such as the bandeer, mezhar, and galagil.

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Works by Gamal Abdel-Rahim