Ensemble Windstreken & Ruben Zahra

Ensemble Windstreken & Ruben Zahra

The Dutch Ensemble Windstreken makes musical connections between very diverse music styles. It combines jazz and improvisation with medieval and contemporary classical music, Indian and North African music. Its main purpose is to discover surprising blends of sounds. The ensemble was founded by flutist/saxophonist Pieter van de Mast in 2004. His instruments, and the Arabic ud, voice, positive organ and percussion form the basis of the ensemble. In search for further connections with other cultures the ensemble will now work together with Ruben Zahra from Malta. Several compositions are exchanged and arranged by Ruben Zahra and the ensemble’s musicians. Ruben Zahra plays authentic traditional Maltese instruments by which the color spectrum of the ensemble is enlarged even further. For this project also a cello is added to the ensemble.
Meanwhile the musicians have been together and have performed in two successful concerts in the Netherlands. Now they travel to Malta to perform in the Malta Arts Festival.
The project is a coproduction of Gaudeamus Muziekweek and Malta Arts Festival, and is supported by the City of Utrecht, the City of Valetta and the ISCM – International Society for Contemporary Music.
Ensemble: Pieter de Mast (flutes, soprano saxophone), Sebastiaan van Delft (organ, positive organ), Kamal Hors (ud, voice), Jörg Brinkmann (cello), Udo Demandt (percussion), Ruben Zahra (authentic Maltese wind instruments).
30 April 2014, de Pletterij, Haarlem, the Netherlands 1 May 2014, RASA, Utrecht, the Netherlands 22 July 2014, Malta Arts Festival, Valetta Ensemble Windstreken & Ruben Zahra