“Das schönste, sehnsüchtigste, Musikinstrument der Welt? Die Oud, die orientalische Kurzhalslaute. Ihr warmer und immer etwas flüchtiger Klang, den man so gern festhalten würde, der sich einen aber entzieht wie Wüstensand, zaubert Bilder im Breitwandformat ins Kopfkino. Vor allem, wenn sie so gespielt wird wie von Marwan Abado, dem Virtousen, Poeten und Sänger mit der unvergleichlicher Samtstimme. Eine Stunde voll magischer Musik.”
Andreas Russ-Bovelino- Freizeit Kurier, 27.10.2012
Raushana
Recently, Marwan released a new CD entitled Raushana, which is a solo work – his first solo work since the release of Son of the South in 1999. Despite being at the height of the information revololution, surrounded by digital music and a virtually limitless choices in music, Marwan says that he chose solitude and loneliness to work on this album.
‘I held my oud close and immersed myself completely in the humble musical story it told me. I chose a cosy, intimate place to record the CD.’ (The studio of my friend and fellow musician Bernie Rothauer, on the outskirts of Salzburg). When it came to finding a name for the new work, Marwan wanted something that would confuse both Arabic and German speakers – not out of any malicious intentions, but merely to provoke their curiosity. A raushana is ‘a balcony through which light enters, or the place in which drinks are kept’, and it appeared as an architectural feature in the Mamluk period in Egypt. It suggests an intimate space, a place of pleasure, especially given what we know about the opulence of Mamluk life. For German speakers, raushana recalls the word rausch, in common usage since the Middle Ages, meaning ‘intoxication’ or ‘ecstasy’ – which conjures up the atmosphere of Mamluk life equally well.
