Neville Young, reporter

Ibrahim Maalouf is a Paris-based trumpet player of Lebanese descent. As well as being a very fine, contest-winning player of the “normal” instrument we all know and love, Maalouf specializes in playing and developing music for an instrument with four valves, the last being a quarter-tone: this enables Maalouf to explore on trumpet the sounds of his Arab heritage where the standard instrument, with semitones only, would leave gaps in the scales. In this substantial performance Maalouf and his colleagues on drums (David Taieb) and electronics (Sylvain Fabre) aimed to explore a sound world bridging pairs of differing elements: the Arab world and the Occident; traditional and electronic; past and future - it's a musical peace initiative which Maalouf presents persuasively. Just listing what happened can't give the real flavor of the event but among the notable elements were Maalouf's phrasing and sound, which could sometimes make you think you were hearing a double-reed instrument; brilliant guest performances on clarinet and trumpet (Claudio Roditi); and a very characteristic thing where a phrase pushes right to the end with great intensity then suddenly dies to silence (difficult to describe but you'd know if you heard it). Much use was made of the electronics and even of a setup for Maalouf which enabled him to sample a variety of sounds to set up drones, rhythmic patterns, and sung textures - even a mysterious whistling atmosphere was cooked up live on stage in front of us. The first movement of the Haydn Concerto acted as a source too, starting familiarly yet evolved into something quite different as Arabic scale elements and rhythmic alterations crept in. The drums and electronics players were very busy throughout, setting up new textures or developing existing ones. All this made for an interesting concert, one which made you want to know where this will develop next. Maalouf is a convincing advocate for this approach and the resultant mix is well worth hearing.