{"id":110181,"date":"2023-11-06T19:06:49","date_gmt":"2023-11-07T00:06:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/?post_type=interviews&#038;p=110181"},"modified":"2023-11-06T21:04:10","modified_gmt":"2023-11-07T02:04:10","slug":"fma-2023-from-damascus-to-montreal-a-conversation-with-nazih-borish","status":"publish","type":"interviews","link":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/interviews-panm360\/fma-2023-from-damascus-to-montreal-a-conversation-with-nazih-borish\/","title":{"rendered":"FMA 2023: &#8220;From Damascus to Montreal&#8221;,  a conversation with Nazih Borish"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"font-size:22px\"><strong>We sat with renowned Oudist Nazih Borish to discuss his upcoming performance at FMA this year. Originally from Syria, Nazih relocated to Canada in 2016 and since then has been a tour de force of Middle-Eastern and contemporary music nationwide.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"font-size:22px\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"font-size:22px\"><a href=\"https:\/\/placedesarts.com\/fr\/evenement\/nazih-borish-damas-cordoue-la-route-des-cordes\"><strong>Nazih Borish plays November 7th at 7PM at Salle Claude-L\u00e9veill\u00e9e, Place Des Arts<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Nazih Borish  promo  Roots of strings\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4kYeHQGDucQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><strong>PAN M 360: Thanks for being with us Nazih. We\u2019re very excited about your performance at the Festival du monde Arabe this year.\u00a0<\/strong><br><br><strong>Nazih:<\/strong> Of course.\u00a0<br><br><strong>PAN M 360:\u00a0 Maybe you can tell us a bit more about your performance. I saw in the program it has the tagline \u201cfrom Damascus to Cordoba\u201d. Will you be playing with your group or unaccompanied?<\/strong><br><br><strong>Nazih: <\/strong>Actually this will be a solo performance. I like to play with a band, but with a band, it&#8217;s always a bit more organised, you know, and sometimes I like the freedom that comes from playing alone. I can improvise. So just I close my eyes and whatever my situation I will play and try to have the audience join me, join my ideas, join the music. Not that everything will be improvised. I will be playing some compositions and improvising within them, I would say almost like 50\/50.\u00a0<br><br>I will play a piece, it&#8217;s called Andalusyria. It&#8217;s the title of a new project for us, and like this performance,we start with the story of the oud in Syria, and we tell the tale of the travellers who took the instrument from Damascus all the way to Spain.\u00a0<br><br><strong>PAN M 360: So, what is the story of the Oud for those of us who don&#8217;t know? Well the simple story I should say.\u00a0<\/strong><br><br><strong>Nazih: <\/strong>So yes, it\u2019s exactly as you say. I can only give you a simple version, because there are many many stories about how and where the oud came to be. It has different names in China, the pipa, the biwa in Japan, and the sitar in India, and the oud really is the grandfather of string instruments.\u00a0 My last project, <em>The Roots of Strings<\/em>, was exactly about that.<br><br><strong>PAN M 360:\u00a0 And what is your story with the Oud?<\/strong><br><br><strong>Nazih: <\/strong>Oh, my history with the Oud. Well my father, he was like a pop singer. It&#8217;s not the pop that you might be thinking of, he was not like very, very famous, you know. But he was still well known and so he was playing this instrument and singing all the time. My uncle plays the violin as well. So I grew up with the music in the family. At that time, there was no YouTube, no internet in Syria, in my country, no nothing. The only thing was the cassette, do you remember those?<br><br>I will tell you something about cassettes, because I respect these things. I still keep a car from 2004 because it has a cassette player. I keep it out of respect, it\u2019s how I learned everything. With my father we listened to Munir Bashir in the car. Do you know Munir Bashir? He was an oud player from Iraq. For me, he&#8217;s the philosophy of the oud. Because he was playing without borders, without geography. At the same time I listened to a lot of Ravi Shankar, Paco de Lucia.\u00a0<br><br><br>That&#8217;s why I like to mix all these musical cultures and styles on this instrument, this \u201ctraditional instrument\u201d.\u00a0 Some people they say, okay, you cannot play more than traditional music on the oud but I don\u2019t accept that. Since I arrived here in Canada and and now I am proudly Canadian, I have been playing with many bands and many kinds of different music, like baroque music and jazz. That&#8217;s what I was dreaming about when I was young!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Munir Bashir - Johnny Guitar\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WY8nCGs7n_4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><strong>PAN M 360: That&#8217;s amazing. I admire your approach so much. This philosophy of music is music.&nbsp;<\/strong><br><br><strong>Nazih: <\/strong>Yeah, no borders, no genres, this is my message actually as a musician. I want to break the rules of how to use this instrument, because it&#8217;s actually a very, very open instrument. Six strings, no frets. You can do a lot. Music is only sound after all. And I find the Canadian audiences to be very interested and interesting to perform for. They know about our culture, and know about many different cultures. They care about the music, and the audience here are very respectable. So you cannot play just anything for them. You have to be careful when you get on stage here.<br><br><br><strong>PAN M 360: Well how are you preparing for your concert tomorrow? What are you thinking about? Are you practicing a lot?<\/strong><br><br><strong>Nazih: <\/strong>Look, the practice I do before a day of the concert is to be calm. It\u2019s not physical practice but physiological, you know. To stay calm, to stay focussed. I do the physical practice maybe 15 minutes before a concert. Just to warm up, it&#8217;s very necessary.<br><br>But the practicing I\u2019ve been doing is to be ready for the people, because as I said the audience are very, very respectable. I don\u2019t speak too much on stage, some people think I\u2019m shy but I\u2019m trying to give all my energy to the music and that\u2019s it. I prefer to let the audience imagine the stories. Like one of my compositions \u201cDamasrose\u201d, it\u2019s the name of the jasmine flower, typical of the streets of Damascus. That image with the music is all you really need to take the journey with me.&nbsp;<br><br><br><strong>PAN M 360: I&#8217;m really looking forward to your show and I&#8217;m wishing you all the best.<\/strong><br><br><strong>Nazih :<\/strong> Thank you.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We sat with renowned Oudist Nazih Borish to discuss his upcoming performance at FMA this year. Originally from Syria, Nazih relocated to Canada in 2016 and since then has been a tour de force of Middle-Eastern and contemporary music nationwide.&nbsp; Nazih Borish plays November 7th at 7PM at Salle Claude-L\u00e9veill\u00e9e, Place Des Arts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1388,"featured_media":110187,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"genre":[4145,4229,7977],"class_list":["post-110181","interviews","type-interviews","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","genre-arabic-classical","genre-arabic-traditional","genre-musique-contemporaine-2-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>FMA 2023: &quot;From Damascus to Montreal&quot;, a conversation with Nazih Borish - PAN M 360<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/interviews-panm360\/fma-2023-from-damascus-to-montreal-a-conversation-with-nazih-borish\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"FMA 2023: &quot;From Damascus to Montreal&quot;, a conversation with Nazih Borish - PAN M 360\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We sat with renowned Oudist Nazih Borish to discuss his upcoming performance at FMA this year. Originally from Syria, Nazih relocated to Canada in 2016 and since then has been a tour de force of Middle-Eastern and contemporary music nationwide.&nbsp; Nazih Borish plays November 7th at 7PM at Salle Claude-L\u00e9veill\u00e9e, Place Des Arts\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/interviews-panm360\/fma-2023-from-damascus-to-montreal-a-conversation-with-nazih-borish\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"PAN M 360\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/panm360\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-11-07T02:04:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/panm360.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/1440x810-28__event_1024.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"576\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@PANM360\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/interviews-panm360\/fma-2023-from-damascus-to-montreal-a-conversation-with-nazih-borish\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/interviews-panm360\/fma-2023-from-damascus-to-montreal-a-conversation-with-nazih-borish\/\",\"name\":\"FMA 2023: \\\"From Damascus to Montreal\\\", a conversation with Nazih Borish - PAN M 360\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/interviews-panm360\/fma-2023-from-damascus-to-montreal-a-conversation-with-nazih-borish\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/interviews-panm360\/fma-2023-from-damascus-to-montreal-a-conversation-with-nazih-borish\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/panm360.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/1440x810-28__event_1024.jpeg\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-11-07T00:06:49+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-11-07T02:04:10+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/interviews-panm360\/fma-2023-from-damascus-to-montreal-a-conversation-with-nazih-borish\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/interviews-panm360\/fma-2023-from-damascus-to-montreal-a-conversation-with-nazih-borish\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/interviews-panm360\/fma-2023-from-damascus-to-montreal-a-conversation-with-nazih-borish\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/panm360.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/1440x810-28__event_1024.jpeg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/panm360.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/1440x810-28__event_1024.jpeg\",\"width\":1024,\"height\":576,\"caption\":\"nazih\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/interviews-panm360\/fma-2023-from-damascus-to-montreal-a-conversation-with-nazih-borish\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Accueil\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/home-360\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Interviews\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/interviews-panm360\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"FMA 2023: &#8220;From Damascus to Montreal&#8221;, a conversation with Nazih Borish\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/\",\"name\":\"PAN M 360\",\"description\":\"Le m\u00e9dia num\u00e9rique de la musique !\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/#organization\",\"name\":\"PAN M 360\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/panm360.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/PAN-M360_Logo_RGB.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/panm360.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/PAN-M360_Logo_RGB.jpg\",\"width\":1663,\"height\":631,\"caption\":\"PAN M 360\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/panm360\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/PANM360\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/panm360\/\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/panm360\/\",\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCHEFHd3UhIrV6EJ3ltzVKOA?view_as=subscriber\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"FMA 2023: \"From Damascus to Montreal\", a conversation with Nazih Borish - PAN M 360","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/interviews-panm360\/fma-2023-from-damascus-to-montreal-a-conversation-with-nazih-borish\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"FMA 2023: \"From Damascus to Montreal\", a conversation with Nazih Borish - PAN M 360","og_description":"We sat with renowned Oudist Nazih Borish to discuss his upcoming performance at FMA this year. Originally from Syria, Nazih relocated to Canada in 2016 and since then has been a tour de force of Middle-Eastern and contemporary music nationwide.&nbsp; Nazih Borish plays November 7th at 7PM at Salle Claude-L\u00e9veill\u00e9e, Place Des Arts","og_url":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/interviews-panm360\/fma-2023-from-damascus-to-montreal-a-conversation-with-nazih-borish\/","og_site_name":"PAN M 360","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/panm360\/","article_modified_time":"2023-11-07T02:04:10+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1024,"height":576,"url":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/1440x810-28__event_1024.jpeg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_site":"@PANM360","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/interviews-panm360\/fma-2023-from-damascus-to-montreal-a-conversation-with-nazih-borish\/","url":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/interviews-panm360\/fma-2023-from-damascus-to-montreal-a-conversation-with-nazih-borish\/","name":"FMA 2023: \"From Damascus to Montreal\", a conversation with Nazih Borish - PAN M 360","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/interviews-panm360\/fma-2023-from-damascus-to-montreal-a-conversation-with-nazih-borish\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/interviews-panm360\/fma-2023-from-damascus-to-montreal-a-conversation-with-nazih-borish\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/1440x810-28__event_1024.jpeg","datePublished":"2023-11-07T00:06:49+00:00","dateModified":"2023-11-07T02:04:10+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/interviews-panm360\/fma-2023-from-damascus-to-montreal-a-conversation-with-nazih-borish\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/interviews-panm360\/fma-2023-from-damascus-to-montreal-a-conversation-with-nazih-borish\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/interviews-panm360\/fma-2023-from-damascus-to-montreal-a-conversation-with-nazih-borish\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/1440x810-28__event_1024.jpeg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/1440x810-28__event_1024.jpeg","width":1024,"height":576,"caption":"nazih"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/interviews-panm360\/fma-2023-from-damascus-to-montreal-a-conversation-with-nazih-borish\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Accueil","item":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/home-360\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Interviews","item":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/interviews-panm360\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"FMA 2023: &#8220;From Damascus to Montreal&#8221;, a conversation with Nazih Borish"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/#website","url":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/","name":"PAN M 360","description":"Le m\u00e9dia num\u00e9rique de la musique !","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/#organization","name":"PAN M 360","url":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/PAN-M360_Logo_RGB.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/PAN-M360_Logo_RGB.jpg","width":1663,"height":631,"caption":"PAN M 360"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/panm360\/","https:\/\/x.com\/PANM360","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/panm360\/","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/panm360\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCHEFHd3UhIrV6EJ3ltzVKOA?view_as=subscriber"]}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/interviews\/110181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/interviews"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/interviews"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1388"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110181"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=110181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}