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Wobeon is pleased to host DINA ELWEDIDI, all the way from Giza, Egypt. A sophisticated musical innovator, her richly ornamented and detailed compositions, generous arrangements, bell-clear voice, and charismatic stage presence have established her as a global cultural force. An electrifying singer/songwriter and musical innovator who blends together the power of rock with the deep traditions of her native Egypt, Dina Elwedidi and her band have graciously agreed to perform not once, but twice, in the ATX as part of their Fall tour of the US under the auspices of Center Stage, a public diplomacy initiative of the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
ABOUT DINA ELWEDIDI AND HER MUSIC Elwedidi began to think of herself as a musician, as a potential songwriter. “I started to follow the music scene,” remembers Elwedidi. “I’d go to every concert I could, I was curious about everything that was happening.” She took workshops by Grammy-winning artist Fathy Salama, whose approach prodded all participants to start composing melodies and writing lyrics, and with Palestinian instrumentalist-songwriter, Kamilya Jubran. Elwedidi began working on her own original pieces. A producer and musician friend, violinist Nancy Munir, urged her to start her own band. She picked up on singing styles and unusual folk instruments, on jazz savvy and pop bounce, melding them with seemingly effortless glee into single tracks. She wove new rhythms into her songs, “rhythms that don’t usually appear in Egyptian music,” she explains. The sounds and lives around her found their ways into her work, and she found her bold, nimble voice. The project became an underground hit, then quickly gathered critical and popular strength at home and abroad. Elwedidi drew the attention of the Rolex Mentors and Proteges Arts Initiative, and Brazilian icon Gilberto Gil took her under his wing. “I traveled with him, watched him on stage and backstage,” Elwedidi says. “Eventually we performed together. He gave me a lot of support and advice about Turning Back, my first album,” singing a cameo on one track. “After I finished my mentorship, I asked if I could compose a song for him.” Next, Elwedidi tapped a guitarist she met in Bahia at Carnival. “The track, ‘The Night,’ was just the three of us. Gil loved it. He started to write his own lyrics for it. I traveled to Brazil to record it in Gil’s studio.” Elwedidi’s songs on Turning Back album take a striking perspective on Egypt’s musical worlds. She harnesses the potent, buzzy drone of the iarghul, a rare reed instrument from Upper Egypt Elwedidi learned to play. In “Circles,” a stunning statement about battling depression, she turned to a Cairene group of women who still perform the zār, a ritual associated with restoring mental balance through song. “It’s a practice that is disappearing,” notes El Wedidi. “I asked them to collaborate with me, and they were open to do that. They were my mentors. They got us into the trance.” The work she did with Gil and the Nile Project, and the songs captured on her first album engage, directly and indirectly, in social and political commentary through a personal lens, and Elwedidi is intensifying her focus. “I have always picked lyrics that I love, that move me and reach the soul,” she reflects. “Recently, I’ve been drawn to lyrics written about personal experiences that speak to problems and ideas I have also dealt with in my own life.” As Elwedidi continues to explore the intersections -- of the personal and political, of home and the other, of Arabic and African musics, she is inviting us to join her in new spaces, spaces open to all.
Dina Elwedidi channels the heritage and contemporary identity of Cairo to deliver “transcendent performances.”
(Al-Ahram) A sophisticated musical innovator, her richly ornamented and detailed compositions, generous arrangements, bell-clear voice, and charismatic stage presence have established her as a global cultural force. “Dina is a huge talent. Her voice is captivating and irresistible. There is a fierce personal-political thread through her music that opens a space for a future otherwise unable to be born.” (Peter Sellars) With sophisticated musical hybridity, “Elwedidi’s songs reflect different temperaments and styles, from jazz to folk and underground rock, a combination of instruments and sounds that can’t be labeled under one category. She is shaping a new musical genre that has emerged in the wake of the Tahrir Square Revolution.” (Euro News)
The presentation of Dina Elwedidi is part of Center Stage, a public diplomacy initiative of the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, administered by the New England Foundation for the Arts in cooperation with the U.S. Regional Arts Organizations, with support from the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, and the Trust for Mutual Understanding. General management is provided by Lisa Booth Management, Inc.
Special, HUGE thanks also to One-2-One Bar, Austin's best-sounding music experience space.
