Workshop
Music Matters
With Emel Mathlouthi
Thu, Feb 29 @ 6:30pm, 2024
The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi
Past Event
Join Emel Mathlouthi, songwriter, composer, guitarist, and singer in this interactive workshop and explore the importance of music as an act of art and social change. By making music, we can draw transformation and innovation for generations to come and create music that is unique and profound.
Biography
Emel Mathlouthi
Emel Mathlouthi is a songwriter, composer, guitarist, and singer who brings a powerful brand new sound to Tunisian music. Endowed with an outstanding voice, her early career drew comparisons to Joan Baez, Sister Marie Keyrouz and the Lebanese diva Fairouz – propelled by her global anthem “Kelmti Horra (My Word is Free),” while her more recent projects have been compared to Bjork and Kate Bush. In her environmentally-themed project Everywhere We Looked Was Burning, which she’ll perform accompanied by electronics and a string quartet, Mathlouthi has shifted and complicated her sound, incorporating a dark atmosphere, expansive electronics and digital glitches, without losing her spirit. As anyone who has seen or heard her perform knows, all of her work is powered forward by her otherworldly operatic voice, a voice that is comfortable in the streets, in a club or theater, or at the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony.