As his life has unfolded in the war torn and unpredictable city of Beirut, his music has come to hold its share of surprises. It’s not unlikely for Tarek to create a composition today for a jazz trio, and tomorrow ornament it with an ensemble of Khaleeji (Arabian Gulf) percussion. As an artist, he has become as variable as his city of birth – a place that has equally embraced him and swept him aside.
If his fingers moved to the 88th key on his upright Belarus piano, he would be two inches from ringing a C note into his sleeping grandfather’s ear. If he swung in the opposite direction, he’d greet the neighbor through the entrance door. Such were the space limitations of Beirut during Tarek’s developing years. Within this compact site, Tarek found the elixir of creativity. The physical space became less of a factor in his process. He managed to turn his portable habitat into an autodidactic laboratory of experimentation where his extraordinary harmonic knowledge, rhythmic complexities, and Arabic heritage created a mélange that transcended the available resources.
Today, Tarek leaves his apartment in Harlem at 8:30am to take the train to 34th Street then walk his way to BAC on West 37th Street. He enters the 20,000 square foot complex, greets the receptionist, takes the elevator to the 4th floor. He sits to practice on a grand piano in Studio 4B, where the southern light strikes the unfamiliar 43 by 29 foot space through broad windows that reach the ceiling height of 17 feet 7 inches. On his right, the wall is at least 15 feet away. On his left, his reflection appears in the mirrors that span the eastern wall. In this space, Tarek is set to create a new work to be performed at the end of his four-week residency at BAC.
Jazz happens in small spaces that turn the audience into capsules of ecstasy that erupt after every solo. Some cats are fireflies, presenting the hope symbolized by a beam of light in deep darkness, while others are dragonflies, reflecting changes in perspective. It is a real-time improvised conversation that absorbs the space and molds sound to form unity. The sound waves reach the audience and instantly reflect back to the musicians, who react to that feedback. It is what they derive from to create.
In the first few days of his residency, Tarek asks for the heat to be turned up, but realizes it isn’t the room temperature that’s contributing to the cold in his bones: it’s his artistic nakedness. With every new work, the artist is new. The process feels unfamiliar, unaccomplished, unmotivated. In Studio 4B, he faces empty space to fill. It’s not a random algorithm that space can define a musician’s sound; the great architect Frank Lloyd Wright said, “when I see architecture that moves me, I hear music in my inner ear.” In this large space, Tarek married the firefly with the dragonfly to create one of his most intimate approaches to his music – a conversation for two. He is set to create a new duet to be performed with vibraphonist Sasha Berliner at the end of his four-week residency at BAC.
Visit Tarek's Residency Page
Darine Hotait is an American Lebanese fiction writer and film director. She has written and directed a number of narrative short films that have screened at numerous international film festivals, received multiple Best Fiction Film awards, and were broadcasted on Sundance TV, AMC Networks, BBC, and Shorts International. She is the recipient of the Literary Fellowship at New York Foundation for the Arts and the Arab Fund for Arts & Culture Cinema Grant. In 2016, she was nominated for the prestigious Goethe Award. Her short stories and stage plays have appeared in various publications in print and online as well as curated art exhibitions in Berlin, New York, Beirut, and London. She is the founder of Cinephilia Productions in New York, an incubator for the development of filmmakers from the MENA region. Her new film Like Salt will premiere in July 2018. She resides in New York City.
