CityBand Concert
On Tuesday evening, students, faculty and other members of the Exeter community entered the Bowld to watch Syrian born clarinetist Kinan Azmeh and the CityBand perform. The performance, presented by the music department and the Robbins Memorial Symposium, consisted of six songs along with an extra crowd-requested song during the night. The group of four musicians utilized their mastery of distinct yet complementing instruments to captivate the large number of audience members.
The members of the band, Kinan Azmeh on the clarinet, Josh Myers on the double bass guitar, John Hadfield as the group’s multi-talented percussionist and Kyle Sanna with his rustic hollow-bodied electric guitar, met in New York City around 2005. Initially, the band performed a gig or two a year until they grew in fame and began to receive praise from both audience and critic alike.
Azmeh’s musical background is rooted in classical clarinet playing, but somewhere down the line he took interest in jazz and started improvising and incorporating it into his music. He grew up in Damascus, Syria. Myers on the other hand, a Boston native, in his words, “played a lot of different types of music” and studied jazz in college, later taking on the guitar, the piano, the drums and his voice until finally ending up with the double bass. Sanna grew up in Oregon, studied jazz in college as well but grew up playing rock music. After graduation, he moved to New York City where he met Azmeh sometime after. John Hadfield, the group’s percussionist, who simultaneously serves as a member of the jazz faculty at New York University, implores a variety of styles in his music that one could describe as genre-bending.
The performers were praised by spectators for the exceptional skill that they demonstrated in their respective instruments. Senior RC McShane expressed his admiration for Hadfield and his mastery of the percussion instruments. “I really enjoyed the intricacy of the rhythm presented by the percussionist and his ability to cover so many different instruments,” he said. McShane also complimented Azmeh for his clarinet skills, describing him as “spectacular” and applauding him for his “performance etiquette.”
One of the group’s unique characteristics is their tendency to improvise and alter their music during performances. Lower Samantha Gove noted the observations she made about their improvising skill: “They went off of the flow and feelings the musicians had,” she said. “The other musicians harmonized and followed along which was my favorite part.” Lower Hanna Pak shared similar observations of the group. She added that the group was able to create new pieces which allowed them to consistently play new melodies, “I loved seeing them communicate as improvisers because they created entirely new pieces from the ones they played at assembly,” Pak said.
Azmeh and the CityBand were admired for their compelling and unique style of music. Gove praised the group for incorporating a “mix of styles.” McShane shared similar sentiment of Gove, and he expressed his appreciation for the style of music the group presented. “When I went last night, I hoped to expand my musical horizons, and the performers did not disappoint. Each musician brought his talent to the mix and created a group dissimilar to any on the planet, one that creates their own style [of] music,” he said.
Before performing the final piece of the night, titled “Wedding,” Azmeh explained that he drew his inspiration from a small moonlit town in Syria. Azmeh has cited Syria’s current state as one of the primary influences in his music. “I know I am just a man, and I know that my clarinet cannot stop a bullet, but I hope it will cause people to take action.” Azmeh said. In introducing “Wedding” Azmeh dedicated the piece to his home country, ending the concert with a moving dedication that emphasized the power. “This is dedicated to the people of Syria, who in the last six years have managed to fall in love. Falling in love is one of the basic human rights that no authority should have the power to take away.”