Halim El-Dabh
Encyclopedia
Halim Abdul Messieh El-Dabh is an Egyptian-born American
Egyptian American
Egyptian Americans are Americans of Egyptian ancestry, first-generation Egyptian immigrants, or descendants of Egyptians who immigrated to the United States. In the 2007 U.S. census, the number of people with Egyptian ancestry was estimated at 195,000, although some estimates range from several...

 composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

, performer, ethnomusicologist
Ethnomusicology
Ethnomusicology is defined as "the study of social and cultural aspects of music and dance in local and global contexts."Coined by the musician Jaap Kunst from the Greek words ἔθνος ethnos and μουσική mousike , it is often considered the anthropology or ethnography of music...

, and educator, who has had a career spanning six decades. He is particularly known as an early pioneer of electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...

, for having composed in 1944 the first piece of electronic tape music
Tape Music
Tape Music is an experimental 10" vinyl release by Jack Dangers. The vinyl release was coupled with the album Sounds Of The 20th Century No2 when released as a flexi disc vinyl....

, specifically an electroacoustic
Electroacoustic music
Electroacoustic music originated in Western art music during its modern era following the incorporation of electric sound production into compositional practice. The initial developments in electroacoustic music composition during the mid-20th century are associated with the activities of composers...

 musique concrète
Musique concrète
Musique concrète is a form of electroacoustic music that utilises acousmatic sound as a compositional resource. The compositional material is not restricted to the inclusion of sounds derived from musical instruments or voices, nor to elements traditionally thought of as "musical"...

 piece, and later for his influential work at the Columbia–Princeton Electronic Music Center
Computer Music Center
The Computer Music Center at Columbia University is the oldest center for electronic and computer music research in the United States. The Center was founded in the 1950s as the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center....

 from the late 1950s to early 1960s.

Early life

El-Dabh was born and grew up in Sakakini, Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

, a member of a large and affluent Coptic
Coptic Christianity
The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria is the official name for the largest Christian church in Egypt and the Middle East. The Church belongs to the Oriental Orthodox family of churches, which has been a distinct church body since the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, when it took a different...

 family that had earlier emigrated from Abutig
Abutig
Abutig is a city in the Asyut Governorate of Egypt. Located on the west bank of the Nile, it has a population of around 440,000 inhabitants....

 in the Upper Egyptian
Upper and Lower Egypt
Ancient Egypt was divided into two regions, namely Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. To the north was Lower Egypt where the Nile stretched out with its several branches to form the Nile Delta. To the south was Upper Egypt, stretching to Syene. The two kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt were united c....

 province of Asyut
Asyut Governorate
Asyut Governorate is one of the governorates of Egypt. It stretches for about 120 km along the banks of the Nile. The capital of the governorate is the city of Asyut.-Etymology:...

. The family name means "the hyena
Hyena
Hyenas or Hyaenas are the animals of the family Hyaenidae of suborder feliforms of the Carnivora. It is the fourth smallest biological family in the Carnivora , and one of the smallest in the mammalia...

" and is not uncommon in Egypt. In 1932 the family relocated to the Cairo suburb of Heliopolis
Heliopolis (Cairo Suburb)
Modern Heliopolis is a district in Cairo, Egypt. The city was established in 1905 by the Heliopolis Oasis Company, headed by the Belgian industrialist Édouard Louis Joseph, Baron Empain, as well as Boghos Nubar, son of the Egyptian Prime Minister Nubar Pasha.-History:The Baron Empain, a well known...

. Following his father's profession of agriculture, he graduated from Fuad I University (now Cairo University
Cairo University
Cairo University is a public university located in Giza, Egypt.The university was founded on December 21, 1908, as the result of an effort to establish a national center for educational thought...

) in 1945 with a degree in agricultural engineering
Agricultural engineering
Agricultural engineering is the engineering discipline that applies engineering science and technology to agricultural production and processing...

, while also studying, performing, and composing music on an informal basis. Although his main income was derived from his job as an agricultural consultant, he achieved recognition in Egypt from the mid- to late 1940s for his innovative compositions and piano technique.

Early electronic music in Cairo

It was while he was still a student in Cairo that he began his experiments in electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...

. El-Dabh first conducted experiments in sound manipulation with wire recorders
Wire recording
Wire recording is a type of analog audio storage in which a magnetic recording is made on thin steel or stainless steel wire.The wire is pulled rapidly across a recording head which magnetizes each point along the wire in accordance with the intensity and polarity of the electrical audio signal...

 there in the early 1940s. By 1944, he had composed the first piece of electronic tape music
Tape Music
Tape Music is an experimental 10" vinyl release by Jack Dangers. The vinyl release was coupled with the album Sounds Of The 20th Century No2 when released as a flexi disc vinyl....

, or musique concrète
Musique concrète
Musique concrète is a form of electroacoustic music that utilises acousmatic sound as a compositional resource. The compositional material is not restricted to the inclusion of sounds derived from musical instruments or voices, nor to elements traditionally thought of as "musical"...

, called The Expression of Zaar, pre-dating Pierre Schaeffer
Pierre Schaeffer
Pierre Henri Marie Schaeffer was a French composer, writer, broadcaster, engineer, musicologist and acoustician of the 20th century. His innovative work in both the sciences —particularly communications and acoustics— and the various arts of music, literature and radio presentation after the end...

's work by four years. Having borrowed a wire recorder from the offices of Middle East Radio, El-Dabh took it to the streets to capture outside sounds, specifically an ancient zaar
Zar
- Places :* Zar, Armenia, a town in the Kotayk Province* Zar, Azerbaijan, a village in the Kalbajar Rayon currently controlled by the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic* Žár , a village in the Czech Republic* Żar, Łódź Voivodeship, Poland...

ceremony. Intrigued by the possibilities of manipulating recorded sound for musical purposes, he believed it could open up the raw audio content of the zaar ceremony to further investigation into “the inner sound” contained within.

According to El-Dabh, “I just started playing around with the equipment at the station, including reverberation
Reverberation
Reverberation is the persistence of sound in a particular space after the original sound is removed. A reverberation, or reverb, is created when a sound is produced in an enclosed space causing a large number of echoes to build up and then slowly decay as the sound is absorbed by the walls and air...

, echo chamber
Echo chamber
thumb|right|Echo chamber of the Dresden University of Technologythumb|right|Hamilton Mausoleum has a spectacularly long lasting unplanned echoAn echo chamber is a hollow enclosure used to produce echoing sounds, usually for recording purposes...

s, voltage controls
Variable-gain amplifier
A variable-gain or voltage-controlled amplifier is an electronic amplifier that varies its gain depending on a control voltage .VCAs have many applications, including audio level compression, synthesizers and amplitude modulation....

, and a re-recording room that had movable walls to create different kinds and amounts of reverb.” He further explains: "I concentrated on those high tones that reverberated and had different beats and clashes, and started eliminating the fundamental tones, isolating the high overtones so that in the finished recording, the voices are not really recognizable any more, only the high overtones, with their beats and clashes, may be heard." He thus discovered the potential of sound recordings as raw material to compose music. His final 20-25 minute piece was recorded onto magnetic tape
Magnetic tape
Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic recording, made of a thin magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic. It was developed in Germany, based on magnetic wire recording. Devices that record and play back audio and video using magnetic tape are tape recorders and video tape recorders...

 and called The Expression of Zaar, which was publicly presented in 1944 at an art gallery event in Cairo. Following a well received 1949 performance at the All Saints Cathedral in Cairo, he was invited by an official of the U.S. embassy to study in the United States.

Move to the United States

Coming to the United States in 1950 on a Fulbright
Fulbright Program
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright-Hays Program, is a program of competitive, merit-based grants for international educational exchange for students, scholars, teachers, professionals, scientists and artists, founded by United States Senator J. William Fulbright in 1946. Under the...

 fellowship (as expanded to include Egypt via the Smith-Mundt Act
Smith-Mundt Act
The US Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 , popularly referred to as the Smith–Mundt Act, specifies the terms in which the United States government can engage global audiences, also known as public diplomacy....

 of 1948), El-Dabh studied composition with John Donald Robb
John Donald Robb
John Donald Robb was an American composer, ethnomusicologist, arts administrator, and attorney from New Mexico. He was a professor at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and served as Dean of the university's College of Fine Arts from 1942 to 1957...

 and Ernst Krenek
Ernst Krenek
Ernst Krenek was an Austrian of Czech origin and, from 1945, American composer. He explored atonality and other modern styles and wrote a number of books, including Music Here and Now , a study of Johannes Ockeghem , and Horizons Circled: Reflections on my Music...

 at the University of New Mexico
University of New Mexico
The University of New Mexico at Albuquerque is a public research university located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the United States. It is the state's flagship research institution...

; with Francis Judd Cooke
Francis Judd Cooke
Francis Judd Cooke was an American composer, organist, cellist, pianist, conductor, choir director, and professor.-Life:...

 at the New England Conservatory of Music
New England Conservatory of Music
The New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, is the oldest independent school of music in the United States.The conservatory is home each year to 750 students pursuing undergraduate and graduate studies along with 1400 more in its Preparatory School as well as the School of...

; with Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...

, Irving Fine
Irving Fine
Irving Gifford Fine was an American composer. Fine's work assimilated neo-classical, romantic and, later, serial elements...

, and Luigi Dallapiccola
Luigi Dallapiccola
Luigi Dallapiccola was an Italian composer known for his lyrical twelve-tone compositions.-Biography:Dallapiccola was born at Pisino d'Istria , to Italian parents....

 at the Berkshire Music Center
Tanglewood
Tanglewood is an estate and music venue in Lenox and Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It is the home of the annual summer Tanglewood Music Festival and the Tanglewood Jazz Festival, and has been the Boston Symphony Orchestra's summer home since 1937. It was the venue of the Berkshire Festival.- History...

; and with Irving Fine
Irving Fine
Irving Gifford Fine was an American composer. Fine's work assimilated neo-classical, romantic and, later, serial elements...

 at Brandeis University
Brandeis University
Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...

. El-Dabh and his family rented a house in Demarest, New Jersey
Demarest, New Jersey
Demarest is a Borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 4,881.Demarest was formed by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on April 8, 1903, from portions of Harrington Township and Palisades Township. The borough was named...

 before buying a home in Cresskill, New Jersey
Cresskill, New Jersey
Cresskill is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 8,573. The town got its name from the watercress that grew in its streams, or "kills"....

 where they lived for some time.

El-Dabh soon became a part of the New York new music scene of the 1950s, alongside such like-minded composers as Henry Cowell
Henry Cowell
Henry Cowell was an American composer, music theorist, pianist, teacher, publisher, and impresario. His contribution to the world of music was summed up by Virgil Thomson, writing in the early 1950s:...

, John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...

, Edgard Varèse
Edgard Varèse
Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse, , whose name was also spelled Edgar Varèse , was an innovative French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States....

, Alan Hovhaness
Alan Hovhaness
Alan Hovhaness was an Armenian-American composer.His music is accessible to the lay listener and often evokes a mood of mystery or contemplation...

, and Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Peggy Glanville-Hicks was an Australian composer.- Biography :Peggy Glanville-Hicks was born Melbourne in 1912. At age 15 she began studying composition with Fritz Hart in Melbourne...

. He obtained U.S. citizenship in 1961.

Among El-Dabh's works are four ballet scores for Martha Graham
Martha Graham
Martha Graham was an American modern dancer and choreographer whose influence on dance has been compared with the influence Picasso had on modern visual arts, Stravinsky had on music, or Frank Lloyd Wright had on architecture.She danced and choreographed for over seventy years...

, including her masterpiece Clytemnestra (1958), as well as One More Gaudy Night (1961), A Look at Lightning (1962), and Lucifer (1975). Many of his compositions draw on Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

ian themes or texts, and one such work is his orchestral/choral score for the Sound and Light
Son et lumière (show)
Son et lumière , or a sound and light show, is a form of nighttime entertainment that is usually presented in an outdoor venue of historic significance....

 show at the site of the Pyramids
Egyptian pyramids
The Egyptian pyramids are ancient pyramid-shaped masonry structures located in Egypt.There are 138 pyramids discovered in Egypt as of 2008. Most were built as tombs for the country's Pharaohs and their consorts during the Old and Middle Kingdom periods.The earliest known Egyptian pyramids are found...

 at Giza, which has been performed there each evening since 1961.

El-Dabh's primary instruments are the piano and darabukha
Goblet drum
The goblet drum is a hand drum with a goblet shape used mostly in the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe....

 (an Egyptian goblet- or vase-shaped hand drum with a body made of fire-hardened clay), and consequently many of his works are composed for these instruments. In 1958 he performed the demanding solo part in the New York City premiere of his Fantasia-Tahmeel for darabukha and string orchestra (probably the first orchestral work to feature this instrument), with an orchestra under the direction of Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British-born, naturalised American orchestral conductor, well known for his free-hand performing style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from many of the great orchestras he conducted.In America, Stokowski...

. In 1959 he composed several works for an ensemble of percussion instruments from India, for the New York Percussion Trio
New York Percussion Trio
The New York Percussion Trio was a three-member musical group consisting of two percussionists and one pianist, active in the New York City area from the early 1950s until the mid-1970s....

.

Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center

After having become acquainted with Otto Luening
Otto Luening
Otto Clarence Luening was a German-American composer and conductor, and an early pioneer of tape music and electronic music....

 and Vladimir Ussachevsky
Vladimir Ussachevsky
Vladimir Kirilovitch Ussachevsky was a composer, particularly known for his work in electronic music.-Biography:...

 by 1955, by which time El-Dabh he had been experimenting with electronic music for ten years, they later invited him to work at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center
Computer Music Center
The Computer Music Center at Columbia University is the oldest center for electronic and computer music research in the United States. The Center was founded in the 1950s as the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center....

 in 1959 as one of the first outside composers there, where he would become one of the most influential composers associated with the early years of the studio. El-Dabh's unique approach to combining spoken words, singing and percussion sounds with electronic signals and processing contributed significantly to the development of early electroacoustic
Electroacoustic music
Electroacoustic music originated in Western art music during its modern era following the incorporation of electric sound production into compositional practice. The initial developments in electroacoustic music composition during the mid-20th century are associated with the activities of composers...

 techniques at the center. Some of his compositions also made extensive use of Columbia-Princeton's RCA Synthesizer, an early programmable synthesizer
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...

. He worked there sporadically until 1961, creating various tape works, including at least two in collaboration with Luening. Other composers he had become acquainted with at Columbia-Princeton include John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...

, Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...

, and Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...

.

El-Dabh produced eight electronic pieces in 1959 alone, including his multi-part electronic musical drama Leiyla and the Poet
Layla and Majnun
Layla and Majnun, also known as The Madman and Layla – in Arabic مجنون ليلى or قيس وليلى , in , Leyli və Məcnun in Azeri, Leyla ile Mecnun in Turkish, in Urdu and Hindi – is a classical Arab story, popularized by Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi's...

, which is considered a classic of the genre and was later released in 1964 on the LP record
LP record
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...

 Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center
Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center (album)
Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center was an album of electronic music released in 1961. It was the recording of a concert performed at the McMillin Theatre at Columbia University on May 9 and 10, 1961. The stereo version was MS 6566 and the monophonic version was ML 5966...

. His musical style was a contrast to the more mathematical compositions of Milton Babbitt
Milton Babbitt
Milton Byron Babbitt was an American composer, music theorist, and teacher. He is particularly noted for his serial and electronic music.-Biography:...

 and other serial
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...

 composers working at the center, with El-Dabh's interest in ethnomusicology and the fusion
Fusion (music)
A fusion genre is music that combines two or more styles. For example, rock and roll originally developed as a fusion of blues, gospel and country music. The main characteristics of fusion genres are variations in tempo, rhythm, i a sometimes the use of long musical "journeys" that can be divided...

 of folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

 with electronic sounds making his work stand out for its originality. According to El-Dabh: “The creative process comes from interacting with the material. When you are open to ideas and thoughts the music will come to you.” In contrast to his peers (such as Otto Luening, John Cage, and La Monte Young
La Monte Young
La Monte Thornton Young is an American avant-garde composer, musician, and artist.Young is generally recognized as the first minimalist composer. His works have been included among the most important and radical post-World War II avant-garde, experimental, and contemporary music. Young is...

) who sounded, according to The Stranger
The Stranger (newspaper)
The Stranger is an alternative weekly newspaper in Seattle, Washington, USA. It runs a blog known as Slog.-History:The Stranger was founded by Tim Keck, who had previously co-founded the satirical newspaper The Onion, and cartoonist James Sturm. Its first issue came out on September 23, 1991...

, more like "math equations (artists out to prove a point) than actual music," El-Dabh's experimental electronic music were "more shapely and rhythm
Rhythm
Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...

ic constructions" that incorporated traditional stringed
String instrument
A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...

 and percussion sounds, inspired by folk music traditions (including the Egyptian
Music of Egypt
The music of Egypt has been an integral part of Egyptian culture since ancient times. The ancient Egyptians credited one of their Gods Thoth with the invention of music, which Osiris in turn used as part of his effort to civilize the world...

 and Native American
Native American music
American Indian music is the music that is used, created or performed by Native North Americans, specifically traditional tribal music. In addition to the traditional music of the Native American groups, there now exist pan-tribal and inter-tribal genres as well as distinct Indian subgenres of...

 traditions).

Making full use of all ten Ampex
Ampex
Ampex is an American electronics company founded in 1944 by Alexander M. Poniatoff. The name AMPEX is an acronym, created by its founder, which stands for Alexander M. Poniatoff Excellence...

 tape recorder
Tape recorder
An audio tape recorder, tape deck, reel-to-reel tape deck, cassette deck or tape machine is an audio storage device that records and plays back sounds, including articulated voices, usually using magnetic tape, either wound on a reel or in a cassette, for storage...

s available to him at Columbia, his approach to composing electronic music was for immersion, with his seamless blending of vocals, electronic tones, tape manipulation such as speed transposition, and music loop
Music loop
In electroacoustic music, a loop is a repeating section of sound material. Short sections of material can be repeated to create ostinato patterns...

ing, giving Leiyla and the Poet an "unearthly quality" that made it influential among many composers at the time. The number of musicians who have acknowledged the importance of his recordings to their work range from Neil Rolnick
Neil Rolnick
Neil B. Rolnick is an American composer and educator living in New York City.Rolnick's compositions have appeared on 16 records and CDs...

, Charles Amirkhanian
Charles Amirkhanian
Charles Amirkhanian is an American composer. He is a percussionist, sound poet, and radio producer of Armenian extraction. He is mostly known for his electroacoustic and text-sound music...

 and Alice Shields
Alice Shields
Alice Shields is an American composer. She is a respected electronic composer particularly known for her work in opera....

 to rock music
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

ians such as Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...

 and The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band was an American psychedelic rock band of the late 1960s, based in Los Angeles, California.-History:...

. The "organic textures and raw energy" of Leiyla and the Poet in particular inspired many early electronic music composers. Leiyla and the Poet also featured a "sonorous, echo
Echo (phenomenon)
In audio signal processing and acoustics, an echo is a reflection of sound, arriving at the listener some time after the direct sound. Typical examples are the echo produced by the bottom of a well, by a building, or by the walls of an enclosed room and an empty room. A true echo is a single...

ing voice, sonar
Sonar
Sonar is a technique that uses sound propagation to navigate, communicate with or detect other vessels...

 signals, distorted oud
Oud
The oud is a pear-shaped stringed instrument commonly used in North African and Middle Eastern music. The modern oud and the European lute both descend from a common ancestor via diverging paths...

s, percussion that sounds like metal," and "shadowy, shifting dream music." Other works he composed there include the 1959 pieces "Meditation in White Sound", "Alcibiadis' Monologue to Socrates", and the chimey
Chime (bell instrument)
A carillon-like instrument with fewer than 23 bells is called a chime.American chimes usually have one to one and a half diatonic octaves. Many chimes play an automated piece of music. Prior to 1900, chime bells typically lacked dynamic variation and the inner tuning required to permit the use of...

, rhythmic "Electronics and the Word", as well as the 1961 piece "Venice" which is reminiscent of Steve Reich
Steve Reich
Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimal music...

's field recording
Field recording
Field recording is the term used for an audio recording produced outside of a recording studio. The recording is typically recorded in the same channel format as the desired result, for instance, stereo recording equipment will yield a stereo product...

 experiments in the mid-1960s. El-Dabh also helped introduce an "Egyptian folk sensibility" to Western avant-garde music
Avant-garde music
Avant-garde music is a term used to characterize music which is thought to be ahead of its time, i.e. containing innovative elements or fusing different genres....

. A definitive collection of El-Dabh's electronic work was restored by Mike Hovancsek
Mike Hovancsek
Mike Hovancsek is a , , and from Kent, Ohio, United States. He collaborated with Egyptian composer Halim El-Dabh since the late 1980s , and is a former member of the multicultural experimental group,...

. This CD, titled Crossing into the Electric-Magnetic, includes a collaboration with Otto Luening, environmental recordings, and wire recordings that the liner notes cite as "arguably the earliest example of electronic music."

Later life and career

Like Béla Bartók
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...

 before him, El-Dabh has also conducted numerous research trips in various nations, recording and otherwise documenting traditional musics and using the results to enrich his compositions and teaching. From 1959 to 1964 the most significant of these trips included investigations of the musics across the length and breadth of Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

 and Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

, with later fieldwork being conducted in Mali
Mali
Mali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...

, Senegal
Senegal
Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...

, Niger
Niger
Niger , officially named the Republic of Niger, is a landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. It borders Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, Algeria and Libya to the north and Chad to the east...

, Guinea
Guinea
Guinea , officially the Republic of Guinea , is a country in West Africa. Formerly known as French Guinea , it is today sometimes called Guinea-Conakry to distinguish it from its neighbour Guinea-Bissau. Guinea is divided into eight administrative regions and subdivided into thirty-three prefectures...

, Zaire
Zaire
The Republic of Zaire was the name of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo between 27 October 1971 and 17 May 1997. The name of Zaire derives from the , itself an adaptation of the Kongo word nzere or nzadi, or "the river that swallows all rivers".-Self-proclaimed Father of the Nation:In...

, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

, and several other nations. During the 1970s, El-Dabh served as a consultant to the Smithsonian Institution and conducted research on the traditional puppetry of Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

 and Guinea
Guinea
Guinea , officially the Republic of Guinea , is a country in West Africa. Formerly known as French Guinea , it is today sometimes called Guinea-Conakry to distinguish it from its neighbour Guinea-Bissau. Guinea is divided into eight administrative regions and subdivided into thirty-three prefectures...

.

El-Dabh served as associate professor of music at Haile Selassie I University (now Addis Ababa University
Addis Ababa University
Addis Ababa University is a university in Ethiopia. It was originally named "University College of Addis Ababa" at its founding, then renamed for the former Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie I in 1962, receiving its current name in 1975.Although the university has six of its seven campuses within...

) in Addis Ababa
Addis Ababa
Addis Ababa is the capital city of Ethiopia...

, Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

, professor of African studies at Howard University
Howard University
Howard University is a federally chartered, non-profit, private, coeducational, nonsectarian, historically black university located in Washington, D.C., United States...

 (1966-69), and professor of music and pan-African
Pan-Africanism
Pan-Africanism is a movement that seeks to unify African people or people living in Africa, into a "one African community". Differing types of Pan-Africanism seek different levels of economic, racial, social, or political unity...

 studies at Kent State University
Kent State University
Kent State University is a public research university located in Kent, Ohio, United States. The university has eight campuses around the northeast Ohio region with the main campus in Kent being the largest...

 (1969-91); he continues to teach courses in African studies there on a part-time basis. Among the awards and honors he has received are two Fulbright
Fulbright Program
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright-Hays Program, is a program of competitive, merit-based grants for international educational exchange for students, scholars, teachers, professionals, scientists and artists, founded by United States Senator J. William Fulbright in 1946. Under the...

 awards (1950 and 1967), three MacDowell Colony
MacDowell Colony
The MacDowell Colony is an art colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, U.S.A., founded in 1907 by Marian MacDowell, pianist and wife of composer Edward MacDowell. She established the institution and its endowment chiefly with donated funds...

 residencies (1954, 1956, and 1957), two Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...

s (1959-60 and 1961-62), two Rockefeller Foundation fellowships (1961 and 2001), a Meet-the-Composer grant (1999), an Ohio Arts Council
Ohio Arts Council
The Ohio Arts Council is an agency serving the U.S. state of Ohio.Established in 1965, its mission is to "foster and encourage the development of the arts and assist the preservation of Ohio's cultural heritage." Each year it awards grants to arts organizations and individuals throughout the state...

 grant (2000), and two honorary doctorates (Kent State University, 2001; and New England Conservatory, 2007).

El-Dabh is probably the best known composer of Arabic descent and his works are highly regarded in Egypt, where he is considered the foremost living composer among that nation's "second generation" of contemporary composers. He was invited back to his homeland in April 2002 for a festival of his music at the newly constructed Bibliotheca Alexandrina
Bibliotheca Alexandrina
The Bibliotheca Alexandrina or Maktabat al-Iskandarīyah is a major library and cultural center located on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea in the Egyptian city of Alexandria...

 in Alexandria, Egypt; most of the compositions presented were heard by the Egyptian public for the first time.

Many of El-Dabh's scores are published by the C. F. Peters Corporation and his music has been recorded by the Folkways
Folkways Records
Folkways Records was a record label founded by Moses Asch that documented folk, world, and children's music. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987, and is now part of Smithsonian Folkways.-History:...

 and Columbia labels. The first biography of the composer, The Musical World of Halim El-Dabh by Denise A. Seachrist, was published by the Kent State University Press in 2003.

He has been a frequent performer and speaker at both the WinterStar Symposium and the Starwood Festival
Starwood Festival
The Starwood Festival is a seven-day Neo-Pagan, New Age, multi-cultural and world music festival presented in mid- to late July. Approximately 1,500 people attend including staff, speakers and entertainers. The Starwood Festival is a camping event which holds workshops on a variety of subjects...

, where he performed with life-long friend and master drummer Babatunde Olatunji
Babatunde Olatunji
Babatunde Olatunji was a Nigerian drummer, educator, social activist and recording artist.- Biography :Olatunji was born in the village of Ajido, a small town near Badagry, Lagos State, in southwestern Nigeria. A member of the Yoruba people, Olatunji was introduced to traditional African music at...

 in 1997, and where El-Dabh's concert of traditional sacred African music was recorded in 2002. In 2003 he was part of a three-day tribute to the late Olatunji called the SpiritDrum Festival, with Muruga Booker
Muruga Booker
Muruga Booker is an American drummer, recording artist, and Orthodox priest.- Biography :Booker was born Steven Bookvich in Detroit, Michigan on December 27, 1942 and is of Serbian decent. His father, Melvin Bookvich, was a shoemaker who played accordion. He has a wife, Shakti; a son, Aaron; and a...

, Badal Roy
Badal Roy
Badal Roy is a tabla player, percussionist, and recording artist known for his work in jazz, world music, and experimental music.-Biography:...

, Sikiru Adepoju
Sikiru Adepoju
Sikiru Adepoju is a percussionist and recording artist from Nigeria, primarily in the genres of traditional African music and world music. He plays a variety of instruments and styles.- Background :...

, Jeff Rosenbaum, and Jim Donovan
Jim Donovan (musician)
Jim Donovan is a professional drummer and percussionist, a recording artist, writer, teacher and lecturer. He is best known as the drummer and one of the founding members of the band Rusted Root. He plays both standard drum kit and African hand drums such as the djembe, ashiko and talking drum...

 of Rusted Root
Rusted Root
Rusted Root is a band from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania known for their unique fusion of acoustic, rock, world and other styles of music, with a strong percussion section that draws from African, Latin American, Native American, and Indian influences...

http://murugabooker.com/ace.html. In 2005 he performed and ran workshops at Unyazi 2005 in Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...

http://www.southafrica.info/what_happening/conf_expo/unyazi2005.htm, which was the first electronic music symposium and festival to be hosted in Africa.

He is a National Patron of Delta Omicron
Delta Omicron
Delta Omicron is a co-ed international professional music honors fraternity whose mission is to promote and support excellence in music and musicianship.-History:...

, an international professional music fraternity.

He lives with his wife in Kent, Ohio, and has three grown children.

Audio

  • 1944 – The Expression of Zaar
  • 1957 – Sounds of New Music. New York: Folkways
    Folkways Records
    Folkways Records was a record label founded by Moses Asch that documented folk, world, and children's music. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987, and is now part of Smithsonian Folkways.-History:...

    .
  • 1959 – Leiyla and the Poet
  • 1961 – Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center
    Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center (album)
    Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center was an album of electronic music released in 1961. It was the recording of a concert performed at the McMillin Theatre at Columbia University on May 9 and 10, 1961. The stereo version was MS 6566 and the monophonic version was ML 5966...

    . New York: Columbia Masterworks.
  • 1989 – The Self in Transformation: A Panel Discussion. Cassette tape: Features Donald Michael Kraig
    Donald Michael Kraig
    Donald Michael Kraig is an American occult author and practitioner of ceremonial magic. Kraig has published six books, including his 1988 introduction to ceremonial magic, Modern Magick...

    , Jeff Rosenbaum, Joseph Rothenberg, and Robert Anton Wilson
    Robert Anton Wilson
    Robert Anton Wilson , known to friends as "Bob", was an American author and polymath who became at various times a novelist, philosopher, psychologist, essayist, editor, playwright, poet, futurist, civil libertarian and self-described agnostic mystic...

    . ACE
    Association for Consciousness Exploration
    The Association for Consciousness Exploration LLC is an American organization based in Northeastern Ohio which produces events, books, and recorded media in the fields of "magic, mind-sciences, alternative lifestyles, comparative religion/spirituality, entertainment, holistic healing, and related...

    .
  • 2000 – Gilbertson, Nancy. Mediterranean Magic. Moravia, New York: Nancy Cody Gilbertson. Includes Mekta' in the Art of Kita, Book 3.
  • 2000 – Olatunji Live at StarwoodBabatunde Olatunji
    Babatunde Olatunji
    Babatunde Olatunji was a Nigerian drummer, educator, social activist and recording artist.- Biography :Olatunji was born in the village of Ajido, a small town near Badagry, Lagos State, in southwestern Nigeria. A member of the Yoruba people, Olatunji was introduced to traditional African music at...

     & Drums of Passion (guest Halim El-Dabh). CD: Recorded at the 17th Starwood Festival
    Starwood Festival
    The Starwood Festival is a seven-day Neo-Pagan, New Age, multi-cultural and world music festival presented in mid- to late July. Approximately 1,500 people attend including staff, speakers and entertainers. The Starwood Festival is a camping event which holds workshops on a variety of subjects...

     in July 1997. ACE
    Association for Consciousness Exploration
    The Association for Consciousness Exploration LLC is an American organization based in Northeastern Ohio which produces events, books, and recorded media in the fields of "magic, mind-sciences, alternative lifestyles, comparative religion/spirituality, entertainment, holistic healing, and related...

  • 2001 – El-Dabh, Halim. Crossing Into the Electric Magnetic. Lakewood, Ohio: Without Fear.
  • 2002 – Halim El-Dabh Live at Starwood – Halim El-Dabh (With: Seeds of Time) CD: Recorded at the 22nd Starwood Festival
    Starwood Festival
    The Starwood Festival is a seven-day Neo-Pagan, New Age, multi-cultural and world music festival presented in mid- to late July. Approximately 1,500 people attend including staff, speakers and entertainers. The Starwood Festival is a camping event which holds workshops on a variety of subjects...

     in July 2002. ACE
    Association for Consciousness Exploration
    The Association for Consciousness Exploration LLC is an American organization based in Northeastern Ohio which produces events, books, and recorded media in the fields of "magic, mind-sciences, alternative lifestyles, comparative religion/spirituality, entertainment, holistic healing, and related...

  • 2002 – El-Dabh, Halim Blue Sky Transmission: A Tibetan Book of the Dead (original cast recording) Cleveland Public Theatre, Halim El-Dabh, and Raymond Bobgan
  • 2006 – Fan, Joel
    Joel Fan
    Joel Fan is a New York City–based pianist noted for his work with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Project, as well as his solo virtuosity and eclectic repertoire.-Life and career:...

    .
    World Keys. San Francisco, California: Reference Recordings. Includes "Sayera" from Mekta' in the Art of Kita, Book 3.

Films

  • 1960 – Yuriko: Creation of a Dance. Features a rehearsal of The Ghost, with score by El-Dabh
  • 1967 – Herostratus
    Herostratus (film)
    Herostratus is a 1967 film made in London by the Australian director Don Levy, about a young man who wants to commit suicide in public by jumping off a tall building. The title comes from the name of the Ancient Greek man Herostratus, who sought to immortalize his name by setting fire to the Temple...

    . Directed by Don Levy. One scene features audio of El-Dabh's Spectrum no. 1: Symphonies in Sonic Vibration
  • 2000 – Olatunji Live at StarwoodBabatunde Olatunji
    Babatunde Olatunji
    Babatunde Olatunji was a Nigerian drummer, educator, social activist and recording artist.- Biography :Olatunji was born in the village of Ajido, a small town near Badagry, Lagos State, in southwestern Nigeria. A member of the Yoruba people, Olatunji was introduced to traditional African music at...

     & Drums of Passion (guest Halim El-Dabh). DVD: Filmed at the 17th Starwood Festival
    Starwood Festival
    The Starwood Festival is a seven-day Neo-Pagan, New Age, multi-cultural and world music festival presented in mid- to late July. Approximately 1,500 people attend including staff, speakers and entertainers. The Starwood Festival is a camping event which holds workshops on a variety of subjects...

     in July 1997. ACE
    Association for Consciousness Exploration
    The Association for Consciousness Exploration LLC is an American organization based in Northeastern Ohio which produces events, books, and recorded media in the fields of "magic, mind-sciences, alternative lifestyles, comparative religion/spirituality, entertainment, holistic healing, and related...

    .
  • 2002 – Halim El-Dabh Live at Starwood – Halim El-Dabh (With: Seeds of Time) DVD: Filmed at the 22nd Starwood Festival
    Starwood Festival
    The Starwood Festival is a seven-day Neo-Pagan, New Age, multi-cultural and world music festival presented in mid- to late July. Approximately 1,500 people attend including staff, speakers and entertainers. The Starwood Festival is a camping event which holds workshops on a variety of subjects...

     in July 2002. ACE
    Association for Consciousness Exploration
    The Association for Consciousness Exploration LLC is an American organization based in Northeastern Ohio which produces events, books, and recorded media in the fields of "magic, mind-sciences, alternative lifestyles, comparative religion/spirituality, entertainment, holistic healing, and related...

    .

External links


Listening

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