No-Land Bands

Thursday, February 9, 2017 - 11:59pm to Friday, February 10, 2017 - 1:00am
Tune in to Middle Eastern Influences tonight, February 9 from midnight-1:00 AM EST for an exclusive recording of "A Journey to Aleppo", the first music-video collaborative performance by the creative project, No-Land Bands. On January 15 at the Lower East Side's venue, Spectrum, this 5-part performance followed Aleppo before the war, during its destruction and fall, and into exodus of refugees and the camps they must call "home". Musicians improvised off each other, as well as compositions by the influential Sami Al-Shawwa and the projected video performance.

Dominique Groffman had the pleasure of both crowding into Spectrum to watch the performance, as well as sitting down with creative director Nima Farzaneh and three other members of the project, to reflect on "A Journey to Aleppo" and future plans for No-Land Bands. Stay tuned later in the month for this interview and live set.

This "music project for peace" featured performances by Albert Behar on accordion, Dan Kurfirst on percussion, Hamidreza Maleki on santour, Abraham Mennen on tenor sax, Niloufar Nourbakhsh on piano, Tomchess on oud and ney, and Zachary Swanson on bass. Visual performances by Anna Barsan in collaboration with Ferideh Sakhaiefar and refugee camps photographer Muhammad Ali Al Ali.

It has never been a more important time to record, listen to, and share these stories.