CD
"CREATION" is now available
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online
or email: john [at] johnfarah [dot]
com
John Kameel Farah is a Toronto composer, pianist, electronic
musician and visual artist, fusing the music worlds of renaissance and
baroque counterpoint, free improvisation, Middle-Eastern texture,
ambient minimalism, techno and electroacoustics, to synthesize an
entirely original sound. A virtuosic keyboardist simultaneously using
piano, laptop sound sculpture and sequencing , synthesizer and at times
even harpsichord and organ, his creative efforts are fueled by
exchanges of physical, spiritual and emotional energies on both a
macrocosmic and microscopic level. In an effort to see the larger
picture, his music draws upon an interest in history, mythology,
painting and drawing to help deepen his understanding of life and the
human condition. In 1999, after meeting Terry Riley after a performance
at the Kitting Factory in NYC, he had private lessons at his home in
the Sierra Nevada mountains in California. Toronto’s NOW Magazine named
his as Best Pianist 2006.
He studied music composition and piano at the University of Toronto,
winning the Glenn Gould Composition Scholarship in 1993 and 1994.
Farah now focuses
primarily on his own creative hybrid of improvisation, composition and
electronic music. The influences of classical and modern composers such
as Byrd, Bach, Schoenberg, Messiaen, Stockhausen and Shostakovich whose
works he studied and performed can be felt in his music, mixing with
forays into Arabic scales (which use microtonal tunings), free
jazz, ambient minimalism, musique concréte, free improvisation
and forms of electronic dance music such as Drum&Bass, come
together into a unique musical voice. He has also presented many
of his own compositions both for solo piano as well as for string
quartet, percussion groups, wind ensembles and electronic arrangements.
In 1998 he performed the complete solo piano works of Arnold Schoenberg
in Toronto.
Farah performs regularly in Toronto at acclaimed venues from the
Harbourfront Centre to Wavelength, The Music Gallery, Guelph Jazz
Festival, Guelph Spring Festival, The Ambient Ping, Theatre Passe
Muraille, Toronto International Short Film Festival, Victoria Chapel,
the Drake and Gladstone Hotels and at outdoor electronic events such as
the Harvest Festival and Om Festival. He has performed
internationally in Paris, Boston, Mexico and Palestine, having
performed at the Edward Said National Conservatory in Ramallah in 1999,
and in 2002 giving performances and masterclasses in Ramallah, East
Jerusalem and Bethlehem, witnessing the effects of art under
occupation.
As a visual artist, his drawings have been presented at solo and group
exhibitions, most recently being the Visual-Artist-In-Residence
at the Trane Studio jazz club in Toronto. -Eric Shinn
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