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" Who said you could not draw quarter tones from a piano?
"
Aleph (" because it is the first letter
of the alphabet, and also because it is purely middle eastern
") discovered music at the age of 3 years. Playing on
a small wooden piano, where black keys are falsely black because
they are just painted on the white keys…
He tried to reconstruct familiar tunes but
he could not. His parents had to get him his first "real"
piano… But while he succeeded perfectly with occidental melodies,
oriental tunes eluded him… Something was missing, but what
was it?
He got mad, persevered and finally discovered
what was missing: the "quarter tone" of oriental
music.
Aleph, crazy about his keyboard, passionate
about sounds, could not stop until he tamed the occidental
piano. He wanted to express the Orient with the means of the
Occident, with no makeup or subterfuge.
What characterizes Aleph? His fingering,
his rhythmic upbeat style, his ease in improvisation and adaptation,
his harmonies and original resonance.
A self-taught man of genius, Aleph believes
only in personal effort, practice and intuition. Yet he gracefully
acknowledges that his " academic detours " have
provided his art with the necessary classical and technical
basis.
Aleph holds a diploma in Music Theory from
the USEK (Lebanon) (first diploma in classical piano); he
graduated (as a valedictorian) in Music Listening from the
National Conservatoire of Kharkov (Ukraine). He is currently
working on a degree in Harmony from the same conservatoire.
He has received several awards, starting
with the First Prize at the "Concours des Musiciens des
Ecoles Françaises" that he won at age 7. They include
the first prize in Musical Composition organized by the Art
Center of the United Nations for his original piece "Waiting
for the End," and the First Prize of Dictee Musicale
organized by the National Conservatoire of Kharkov (Ukraine),
If, as the saying goes, music is an inner
plenitude that its interpreters transmit to their auditors,
then yes, Aleph is an inhabited artist that stirs enthusiasm,
emotion and incredulous astonishment.
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