Aliya Cycon: Oud Player, Singer & Composer TAQS.IM Middle Eastern Music

Talented young Oud player and singer Aliya Cycon joins the podcast. She was born and raised in America, but her music suggests otherwise. Singing in Arabic, Spanish and English, while showing off her exciting and virtuosic Oud playing, Aliya shares her curiosity for the world through her original compositions and multi-cultural covers. She has performed at the Nobel Business For Peace Awards in Oslo, and toured internationally as a “Cultural Ambassador” for the US State Department, selling out a 1,000-seat amphitheater in Amman, and performing in three Tunisian summer music festivals. Notable collaborations include Jordanian music stars Tareq Jundi, Nasser Salameh and Yarub Smirat. Tunisian icon Zied Gharsa, and LA-based pop singer Naïka. Aliya is sponsored by Godin Guitars, La Bella Strings, and Avid Technology. Check out her new Spain-based project, Aliya and the New Andalus.
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Aliya is originally Polish, and grew up with piano, which was her first love, and she applied to start in jazz at Berklee and was accepted She went on a trip to Palestine with her father, and this left an impression on her - her father runs a coffee company with grassroots activities to assist and support underdeveloped communities This introduced her to Arab style music, and she was enamored with the style and the oud especially, which was her first stringed instrument This was her first experience with heterophonic performance and monophonic melodies She embarked on a journey from jazz piano into Arab music on the oud which involved the study of makam, taqsim, etc. Studied at Alwan for the Arts in Manhattan for an introduction to Arab music, which had just started to offer Arab music courses Interesting story of Aliya's first experience with Rast (Arab mode similar to the major scale, but with particular quarter tones and rules of interpretation) Came into contact with great records through her dance background, including Simon Shaheen's Turath and Ziad Rahbani's Ana Mush Kafr Ziad Rahbani is one of her main influences, which was her main entry point into Arab music, and Shaheen's compositions and tone as well, and Sharbell Rouhana (Lebanes oudplayer) and Marcel Khalifa The Arabic Music Retreat played a big role in her musical development (week-long music conference in Western Massachusetts at Mt. Holyoke College) Oud with vocals in the troubadour style embodied her art as far as how she progressed, and this was based in part due to certain artists she found inspirational Not a purist, she listens to various styles of music and different artists She is currently in Spain, and not surrounded by Arab taksim style music as much anymore, some more Spanish influences in her current environment The oud is a part of her brand, as a female artist Aliya also has some travel tips for oud players for soft-case and hard-case pros/cons She started with instrumental ideas in jazz fusion for oud, not as much with vocals, but this progressed over time - a binary question she faced as an American interested in Arab Jazz fusion Tigran Hamasyan was an influence, as an Armenian jazz pianist Spent some time working on her arranging skills with her second album and orchestration, and even explored cinematic composition styles She incorporated a second oud player for a time while she worked on her oud playing skills, and started to showcase her own oud playing Eventually, she added some Spanish and French vocals and imbued her songs with more of a Mediterranean hue, and geared toward playing for audiences that can enjoy her performance, using some flamenco influence as well She uses La Bella strings, and was able to spec her own strings, and received a Godin oud for her graduation gift from Berklee College of Music from her parents Godin reached out to her and asked her to perform at NAMM, and endorsed her, and now she has two Godin ouds Najib Shaheen restored her Syrian oud and she uses this for recording at times for her Prayer album, an