The Creative Blocks of Music

With Dina El Wedidi

Sat, Mar 2 @ 3:00pm, 2024

The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi

Past Event

This workshop aims to explore the relationship between music, self, common struggles, and more. Working with the idea that music is innately human, this workshop is an invitation to get to know each other through our stories, ideas, sounds, and our art. It aims to delve into questions such as: What does identity mean to you? What is the importance of having your own sound? What do genres mean to you? What is a creative block and how can we overcome it?

Participants are invited to bring their own instruments to the workshop.

Biography

Dina El Wedidi

Dina El Wedidi is a singer, composer, and music producer who was born and raised in Egypt. She began her artistic career with The Workshop/Alwarsha band, and moved to form her own band soon after that.

In 2012 she represented Egypt in The Nile Project, where she collaborated as a musician and composer on two albums, Aswan in 2013 and Jinja in 2014 (and performed at the inaugural season of The Arts Center in Fall 2015). She was chosen by Gilberto Gil and the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative 2013-2014, and based on this collaboration she performed with the international Brazilian musical legend in concerts around the world, in the United States, Brazil, Switzerland, England, and Egypt. She again collaborated with Gilberto Gil in 2014 on her debut album Turning Back/Tedawar wa Tergaa on “El Leil.” In 2023 she shared the stage again with Gilberto Gil at “The Rolex Art Festival” at Megaron Athens featuring Aurelio Martinez and Marcus Gilmore.

In 2018 she released her second album entitled Slumber/Manam, a distinctive experimental project in which she utilized the sounds of trains in motion as the background for all of her songs. Dina El Wedidi was chosen by Time Magazine as one of the ten Next Generation Leaders, in 2019. Dina’s music is described as “a trip through history, mining Egyptian folk music and Arab poetry,” in the article entitled “How This Egyptian Artist is Drawing from History to Inspire Change for the Future.”

Recently, Dina has released her third album Five Seasons. This album is dedicated to all the givers who give unconditionally, to all those who are never thanked enough, and to all those whom we let down, regardless of everything they have done for us.