The projects on stage 2024/2025
In this trio project (oud + 2 percussionists), Driss invites us to distil the spices gleaned from the thousand paths travelled since Agadir, between Arab, Amazigh, Western and sub-Saharan cultures.
Quietly, simply, in the intimacy of a dialogue with two percussionists. So that his instrument can fully express its greed, its desire to revel in contact with other essences, other colours. He translates into music this personal journey between his own tradition and his encounters with other cultures.
The undeniable talent of Driss and his 2 accomplices and their incredible on-stage complicity never cease to surprise and fascinate the audiences who attend their performances.
The concerts are punctuated by one or two songs sung by Driss and a musician (in tribute to Moroccan poets), in a particularly soft, hushed atmosphere.
Karima El Maloumi, Driss's sister, who can be heard singing on the trio's 2 albums, can also be present at concerts (on request).
Driss El Maloumi - oud, vocals
Saïd El Maloumi - daf, zarb, oudou, cajon
Lahoucine Baqir - daf, darbouka, req, castagnette, vocals
Discography
cj038 "Aswat"
03/2023
cj028 "Makan"
2013
2- Driss El Maloumi Trio + String Quintet
Available with a local quintet or with the String Quintet who recorded the album
Driss El Maloumi (oud) - Saïd el Maloumi & Lahoucine Baqir (percussions)
Silvia Bazantova (2nd violon) - Amèle Metlini (1er violon) - Marie Ghitta (alto) - Annemie Osborne (chello) - Adrien Tyberghein (contre-basse)
Driss El Maloumi has long imagined and dreamt up his music accompanied by an orchestra. To achieve this, he invited Spanish artist Javier Blanco to work with him on the arrangements.
This new project illustrates a facet of what Driss calls the search for "Tarab" or "musical ecstasy".
The harmonies created between the Oud, percussion and strings give Driss's repertoire an even more exhilarating dimension.
Right from the start of this project, Driss had the idea of sharing the stage with his own trio and with local musicians from the region where he could perform.
Or with the String Quintet who recorded the album in Belgium...
The arrangements were made with this in mind and are available, as are all the scores.
As a musician who plays with many artists of different styles, and as director and teacher at the Conservatoire de Musique d'Agadir in Morocco, he enjoys sharing his knowledge of Arabo-Oriental influences in his music with other musicians.
He has a great ability to quickly put guest musicians at ease when performing his repertoire.
It's a great way of bringing together Eastern and Western music (further information on request).
cj039 "Details"
Release next Spring 2023
This project is a co-production of Contre-Jour and Zig-Zag World.
Finally, the 'TAFASSIL' (Details in Arabic) project came into being after a long period of continuous work, reflection, writing, rewriting, recording, experimentation and the constant search for different aesthetic formulas.
In this work, Driss wanted to emphasise the importance of the 'details' of everyday life, to rediscover and embody above all silence, simplicity, fragility, strength, tenderness, meditation, beauty…
The choice of a symphony orchestra to perform this new opus is entirely logical.
The arrangements were entrusted to Javier Blanco and Javier Vazquez.
This project is a co-production of Contre-Jour and Zig-Zag World.
Biography
The press has already praised the quality, purity and delicacy of his music and playing style, calling him a «magician of the oud».
Born in 1970 in Agadir, Morocco, Driss El Maloumi is a musician renowned for his talent and virtuosity. He is probably one of the most sought-after oud players of his generation, with his assertive and delicate technique and the depth that characterises this major instrument of Arab-Andalusian music.
After graduating in 1983 with a degree in Arabic literature and writing a dissertation
a dissertation on a philosophical approach to music - La Forme et le fond dans le
artistic discourse -, he also followed a solid training in Arab and Western classical
and Western classical music, and has been awarded successive first prizes for oud
and the honorary prize at the national oud examination at the Conservatoire
national de Musique de Rabat in 1992, 1993 and 1994.
Since 2010, he has been Director of the Conservatoire de Musique d'Agadir.
Si Driss El Maloumi knows and interprets traditional Berber music to perfection,
his work is nourished and enriched by encounters with internationally renowned
such as Jordi Savall & the Ensemble Hesperion XXI (Spain), and Montserrat
Figueras (Spain), with whom he has collaborated on several albums, and Pierre Hamon (France),
Keyvan Chemirani (Iran), Françoise Atlan (France), Debashish Bhattacharya (India), Omar Bachir (Iraq), Prabhu Edouard (India), Carlo Rizzo (Italy) in early, traditional and classical music, as well as Paolo Fresu (Italy), Claude Tchamitchian (Armenia), Daniel Mille (France) and Xavi Maureta (Spain) in jazz.
He has written and participated in the composition of incidental music for numerous shows such as Isabel I, Reina de Castilla (musical director: Jordi Savall), L'Amour Sorcier by Manuel de Fallã & and Oiseau de lune (direction: Antoine Bourseiller), Caravane de lune (Direction: Gérard Kurdjian)
Not to mention film scores such as La Source des femmes (director: Radu Miahileanu) and Le Maroc vu du ciel (director: Yann-Arthus Bertrand).
Driss El Maloumi also performs alongside great poets such as Abdellatif Laâbi (Morocco) & Adonis (Syria).
Discographically, Driss recorded in :
- 2000 the jazz album "Tawada" co-written with Alban Darche (4 stars in Jazz Magazine),
- 2005 his 1st solo album "L'âme Dansée",
- 2008 "3MA" with Ballaké Sissoko & Rajery, best World Music album at Charts Europe,
- 2014 "Makan" in Trio with Saïd El Maloumi and Lahoucine Baqir ("Masterpiece!", for the French magazine, Les Inrockuptibles)
- 2017 "Anarouz" in 2017, again with Ballaké Sissoko and Rajery
- 2023 "Aswat", also as a trio.
Driss has also contributed to some fifteen albums by Jordi Savall.
Finally, he has taken part in remarkable projects such as Françoise Atlan's 1998 album Noches, which won a Choc du Monde de la Musique, and Laurent Voulzy's Lys & Love in 2011.
