Uneven Sky

This is a hugely ambitious and timely double album from the New York-based, Syrian-born virtuoso clarinettist and composer Kinan Azmeh. Melding Syrian-infused melodies and improvisations to a Western orchestral setting, the album is both musically rich and a statement on the place of art and identity in the wake of the Syrian war. Azmeh is a member of Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble and a classical performer in his own right; the album meditates on Syrian identity through the filter of an international artist unable to return to his war-torn homeland.

The first CD features Azmeh's own compositions: ‘Suite for Improviser and Orchestra’, inspired by both Harlem and Syria, and the ‘Ibn Arabi Suite’, named after the Arabic Sufi writer, both with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, as well as the album's highlight, ‘The Fence, the Rooftop and the Distant Sea’. The latter is a duo with Yo-Yo Ma in which clarinet and cello are woven together with dynamism, immediacy and energy. The second CD presents three clarinet concertos, written for Azmeh by Syrian composers Kareem Roustom, Zaid Jabri and Dia Succari. The concertos filter Syrian themes cinematically through more familiar orchestral motifs. Azmeh's note-perfect performances will please fans of orchestral music looking for a worldly twist.