Grammy 2024 -ehdokas: paras klassisen musiikin soololaulualbumi.

Presto Recording of the Week
12th May 2023

Karim Sulayman (tenor), Sean Shibe (guitar)

Dowland: Time stands still
Harvey, J: Sufi Dance
Caccini, G: Dalla porta d'oriente
Monteverdi: Si dolce e'l tormento, SV332
Monteverdi: La mia turca
Traditional Sephardic: La prima vez (Arranged Karim Sulayman and Sean Shibe)
Traditional Arab-Andalusian: Lamma bada yatathanna (Arranged by Sean Shibe)
Darwish: El helwa di (Arranged by Karim Sulayman and Sean Shibe)
Fairuz: Li Beirut (Arranged by Karim Sulayman and Sean Shibe)
Chaker: A Butterfly in New York
Takemitsu: In the Woods - Three pieces for guitar
Britten: Songs from the Chinese, Op. 58

Tenor Karim Sulayman and guitarist Sean Shibe present Broken Branches, a conceptual album with music ranging from Dowland, Monteverdi, Britten, Rodrigo, Takemitsu, Harvey, and Chaker to traditional songs from the Middle East, scrutinizing the close cultural and musical ties between East and West. This musical exploration ties in with the artists’ personal experience of a dynamic, in-between identity, as they grew up in the West having ethnic roots in the East (Lebanon and Japan respectively). Broken Branches explores the wood of the guitar and its relatives, as well as the splintering of history known as diaspora. Karim Sulayman has garnered international attention as a sophisticated and versatile artist, and won a Grammy Award for Classical Solo Vocal in 2019. Multi-award-winning guitarist Sean Shibe brings a fresh and innovative approach to the traditional classical guitar, while also exploring contemporary music and repertoire for electric guitar. He continues his exclusive collaboration with PENTATONE after his well received Camino(2021) and Lost & Found (2022).

"The main idea that Shibe and Sulayman play around with throughout this album is the contrast between exoticised, garbled or merely half-remembered Western portrayals of the Eastern Mediterranean and East Asia..The anonymous La prima vez has a simple plaintiveness, for which Sulayman’s unfussy voice – light, with rapid but unobtrusive vibrato – and Shibe’s gentle accompaniment are perfect." - David Smith, Presto Music, 12th May 2023.