**** review Volkskrant: Bach and Sufi will be a classic
- Mathilde Wantenaar
- Nov 8, 2018
- 1 min read
‘What connects Bach to Sufism is easily told. Nothing. Or well, with creative reasoning a dotted line can be drawn: the spiritual. For the Netherlands Wind Ensemble, it was enough of a dare. The programme Bach & Sufi cuts parts from Bach's Hohe Messe with contemporary music rooted in mystical Islamic traditions by Iranian singer Haleh Seyfizadeh and tarspeler Ali Ghamsari.
Such a project has a high stumbling hazard. Before you know it, you are listening to a fragment this and a song that. Fortunately, the Blazers were generous enough to involve a professional woman. She is a composer and is called Mathilde Wantenaar. She put the knife to the Hohe Messe, put her ear to the ground in Persia, and arranged a feast of music that riotously transcends good intentions.
Within Wantenaar's framework, Bach combines wonderfully with melancholic or ecstatic Sufi sound. [...]’
