Iraqi Oud, Iranian Santour, and American percussion | Albuquerque, NM
The Rahim AlHaj Trio features Iraqi oud virtuoso and composer Rahim Alhaj, Iranian santour maestro Sourena Sefati and world percussion master Nicholas Baker.
Rahim AlHaj was born in Baghdad, Iraq and began playing the oud (the grandfather of all stringed instruments) at age nine. Early on, it was evident that he had a remarkable talent for playing the oud. Mr. Alhaj studied under the renowned Munir Bashir, considered by many to be the greatest oud player of 20th Century, and Salim Abdul Kareem, at the Institute of Music in Baghdad, Iraq. Mr. AlHaj won various awards at the Conservatory and graduated in 1990 with a diploma in composition. In 1991, after the first Gulf War, Mr. AlHaj was forced to leave Iraq due to his activism against Saddam Hussein and began his life in Jordan and Syria. He moved to the US in 2000 as a political refugee and has resided in Albuquerque, NM ever since. Rahim became a US citizen in 2008. In 2015 Rahim was awarded the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship. Rahim has performed around the globe and is considered one of the finest oud players in the world. He has won many accolades and awards including two Grammy nominations.
Born in 1977 in Ramsar, Iran, Sourena Sefati started playing santour at the age of eleven. He learned “Radif Mirza Abdollah” (Persian Classical Music Style Learning) with Majid Kiani, a leading figure in the Iranian musical establishment, and the modern techniques of playing santour with master Kurdish musician Ardavan Kamkar.
He received his Bachelor’s degree in Iranian Music from University of Tehran and his Master’s degree in Iranian Music Performance from Art University of Tehran in 2002 and 2008 respectively. He won the best composer award of Iranian music at Art University in 2006. He served as music instructor at Art University and Elmi-Karbordi University in Tehran from 2008 to 2014. Sourena has performed around the world and is a composer in his own right.
The third member of the trio is master percussionist Nicholas Baker. Originally from Kansas City, Missouri, Baker is an active and in-demand percussionist. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Music degree from the Conservatory of Music at the University of Missouri – Kansas City (2009), and a Master of Music degree in Percussion Performance from University of New Mexico (2011). Post-graduation, Baker studied Afro-Cuban, Brazilian, Colombian, Indian and Middle-Eastern percussion styles with a myriad of teachers.
The trio perform Alhaj’s intricate compositions that evoke the experience of exile from his homeland and of new beginnings in his adopted country. His pieces establish new concepts without altering the foundation of the traditional “Iraqi School of Oud”.