An Arab American singer reframes music about the Crusades
A new project conceived by Lebanese American tenor Karim Sulayman recasts baroque music that by turns demonizes and exoticizes Arabs and Muslims.
Classical singer Karim Sulayman adores Western European music from the 16th and 17th centuries. But this Lebanese American tenor is aware that much of this music demonizes and stereotypes Arabs and Muslims. So in a new stage work called Unholy Wars, he reframes those stories through an Arab American lens.
Unholy Wars is a singular piece. It brings together dance (with dancer Coral Dolphin), theater, visual art and, of course, music both old and new, with a cast of three singers — soprano Raha Mirzadegan and bass-baritone John Taylor Ward, along with Sulayman.
The piece opens with the from Claudio Monteverdi's "It's this echoing of two tenors, and I sing both tenor lines in it,"