Tenor Karim Sulayman and guitarist Sean Shibe delivered a wide-ranging and joyful recital at London's Wigmore Hall on [date of performance], presenting their 'Broken Branches' programme that blends a microcosm of world heritage including English, Japanese, Scottish, Lebanese, and American influences. The performance, which leaned towards joy despite its heavy themes, featured spontaneous and engaging dialogues between cultures.
Programme Highlights
The programme opened with Purcell's Music for a While, setting the scene before moving into pieces by Dowland. A trio of Italian Renaissance madrigals included melancholy Monteverdi, where Sulayman held high notes reminiscent of Italian opera three centuries later. Monteverdi's La Mia Turca had Sulayman boo-hooing down melodic lines at the end of each verse, making the rejected suitor the butt of the joke. A quietly intense Sephardic love song gave way to an Arab-Andalusian guitar piece, leading into El Helwa Di, a gleeful Egyptian number with Sulayman whooping into falsetto.
Spontaneous Performances
Although the programme was well-rehearsed—the duo released a recording in 2023—the performance felt spontaneous. The tenor and guitarist sat alongside each other on an equal level, with Sulayman acting as the balladeer. The small but evocative dialogues between cultures played out seamlessly. Only in Britten's Songs from the Chinese, setting ancient words translated by a 1920s western poet, did the music feel self-conscious, perhaps due to Britten's propensity for the outsider's view.
Striking Solos
Among Shibe's solos, the most striking was Jonathan Harvey's 1997 Sufi Dance—a beguiling, half-remembered impression where the guitar's top string was retuned a notch to recapture the sound of an unfamiliar instrument. Sulayman was a storyteller in several languages—English, Italian, Arabic, and finally Spanish, with a wistful Mexican encore. Together, they held long, pindrop silences, their audience in thrall.
Cultural Heritage
The 'Broken Branches' title comes from a poem by Sinan Antoon on being an Iraqi refugee in New York, set to music in 2022 by Layale Chaker. This song came at the end of a sequence beginning with Li Beirut, a powerful lament for the Lebanese capital. Despite these heavy themes, the performance ultimately leaned towards joy, according to the review.
