AMMAN — The festival of sacred music, Animae Musica, organised by the Institut Français opened on Wednesday with an outstanding performance at the Royal Cultural Centre in Amman.

by Jean-Claude Elias | Jan 17, 2014 |

Members of the Whirling Dervishes troupe perform at a concert at the Royal Cultural Centre in Amman on Wednesday (Photo by Muath Freij)

Performing to a full house, with some of the audience members sitting on the steps in the side aisles, the Whirling Dervishes from Konya in Turkey did more than bring a treat for the eyes and the ears, which is usually what live performances do.

With their authentic Sufi chants, the group added a non-negligible third dimension, a real treat for the spirit.

The all-male 14-member ensemble of singers and musicians captivated the audience with their chants, with the beauty of their voices, with the highly professional quality of their performance and with the trademark dervish dance that fascinated those seeing it for the first time as much as those who had already seen such a dance before.

The deep, introspective spirit that emanated from the artists was such that the audience was emotionally, genuinely touched by the mystical aspect of the performance — for sacred music it was indeed.

Each of the two parts was about 45 minutes long and consisted of an uninterrupted series of chants. Despite the apparently long stretches, rarely heard in other kinds of music, the focus was constant and, in plain words, there was never a dull moment.

The beauty of the voices was a perfect match for the subtly changing rhythms and tempi.

The monophonic chanting was typical of the genre. Relatively short intervals between the notes and frequent returns to the dominant note of the music scale used, is a known trait, often found in chants of religions other than Islam.

If the genre itself fascinated the audience — for it is not performed as often as other genres — the quality of the interpretation by the ensemble was as high as it gets and greatly added to the impression perceived.

One could easily tell the long experience and the work behind such rendering on stage.

The fact that many could not understand the words didn’t diminish in any way the deep feeling of spirituality that the artists managed to channel to the audience.

The next event in the scope of the same festival will take place Friday with the French ensemble Sagittarius, at the same venue.

SOURCE: JORDAN TIMES