The four musicians of the Masmoudi Quartet, led by oud player Mohamed Masmoudi, are renowned for their versatility, sensitivity and virtuosity. They present Villes Éternelles (2023), in which the long and rich tradition of oriental music imbues each of Mohammed Masmoudi’s compositions with its own modes and metrics, on Saturday February 8 at the Théâtre Alphonse-Desjardins in Repentigny (8 p.m.).

With improvisations borrowing from jazz and classical idioms, sprinkled with klezmer inflections and tango rhythms, the works of the Masmoudi Quartet bear witness to the richness of a life begun in Tunisia and continued an ocean away, with a host of influences raked up along the way, in a truly open and experimental approach.

For Mohamed Masmoudi, Villes Éternelles (2023) is the crystallization of several decades of creativity, work, learning and musical exchange. It is the culmination of rigorous refinements and explorations of richly diversified fields, which are inevitably linked by an Ariadne’s thread to the oud’s deep roots. The demonstration of its various uses helps us to see this instrument as more than the reflection of a distant culture, but rather the vehicle of a shared sensibility. Nominated for ADISQ and Folk Music AWARD.

Mohamed Masmoudi – oud
Gabriel Paquin-Buki – clarinet
Guillaume Martineau – piano
Rémi-Jean LeBlanc – double bass

Presented by Aramusique as part of the Musique du monde series.