Aeham Ahmad meets Edgar Knecht
“Keys to Friendship” Tour - Spring 2018
Keys to Friendship is the story of a meeting that is as remarkable as it is moving. The story of two people, two pianists, who, in this grotesquely polarized world, were unlikely to find each other, but who met, became friends and ultimately inspired each other – through their music.
Aeham Ahmad is a Palestinian-Syrian pianist, who became famous through the incredible images of war he sent around the globe. Day after day, Aeham entered the bombed-out streets of the Palestinian quarter Yarmouk of Damascus with a piano mounted on a trolley, to give hope through the power of music. The 29-yearold musician recalls: “We had nothing left: no medication, no water, no food. Everything was destroyed – except our will to live and my piano.
Every time I brought my piano onto the ruined streets, I didn’t think I’d survive the next five days. But when I started playing Palestinian and Syrian folk tunes, a light began to glow in the eyes of the traumatized neighborhood children.” To anyone who has seen the documentaries about Aeham Ahmad on the BBC and ZDF it will seem a near miracle that he has now found a safe home in the German city of Wiesbaden, thanks to the efforts of a television journalist.
Edgar Knecht is a professionally studied pianist and composer. In the course of a highly successful career, this ‘piano sensation,’ who was already concertizing at the age of fourteen, arrived at a musical sujet that has developed into his own personal language. In an entirely unique manner, Knecht combined jazz and folk tunes from a variety of sources with folksongs of his native Germany. He succeeded in reviving wonderful old songs, which had been almost forgotten because of the difficult times in German history. “An essential aspect of what I do is exposing my own musical roots. Whilst this is common in other cultures, in Germany it's not easy to use folk songs because of our special history“ the Kassel- born musician explains. Together with Rolf Denecke on upright bass and Tobias Schulte on percussion, Knecht has gained a world-wide reputation with his unique brand of music.
Booking contact:
Michael Stein
michael.stein@palastpromotion.de
ph: +49 611 1800900
Palast Promotion
Veranstaltungs-Consulting GmbH
Medienpark Unter den Eichen 7
65195 Wiesbaden - Germany
www.palastpromotion.de
