Ayman Asfour

Ayman Asfour is an Egyptian violinist, composer, and improviser based in New York. He performs a diverse musical repertoire ranging from Egyptian folk to free improvisation. Asfour’s first solo album, Sardy Fardy (Odd Narrative), grew out of a single idea: to write melodies inspired by Egyptian musical heritage, set inside a rhythmic framework built on odd meters - rhythms whose basic count is an odd number - so that a familiar melody is molded into an unfamiliar rhythmic shape. These Egyptian melodic phrases share a distinct quality: the ability to tell a story, giving voice to feelings like joy, sorrow, longing, and love. The tension in this unfamiliar combination of melody and rhythm reflects an older sensibility, one heard in some of Sayed Darwish's muwashahat and in the instrumental preludes of Mohamed Abdel Wahab and Baligh Hamdi. Asfour’s compositions explore how that tension creates a new potential for experimentation. Asfour is also a founding member of The Handover with Aly Eissa (oud) and Jonas Cambien (keyboards) and Ampelos Trio with Gabe Lavin (oud) and John Murchison (double bass).