Global Sounds on the Hill featuring Inner Spaces with Amir ElSaffer and Lorenzo Bianchi: Where Arabic Maqam meets Sonic Innovation

Maqam is the foundational modal system used in Arabic, Turkish, and Middle Eastern music. Curated and hosted by iconic DC impresario and musician Jim Thomson Inner Spaces invites audiences into a transcendent musical journey—a fusion of ancestral and futuristic, acoustic and electronic, local and global. Through this synthesis, the duo creates a soundscape that celebrates diversity, innovation, and the limitless possibilities of music. Inner Spaces is a cutting-edge musical collaboration between Amir ElSaffar, a celebrated trumpeter, santur player, vocalist, and composer, and Lorenzo Bianchi Hoesch, an innovative composer and electronic music performer. Together, they create a modular musical work that integrates electro-acoustic soundscapes, maqam, microtonal harmonies, and a dynamic blend of improvisation and composition. This project transcends traditional musical boundaries, exploring form, musical language, and the interplay of electronic and acoustic elements. The music blends jazz, contemporary classical, maqam, raga, and other traditions, embracing their unique richness without oversimplification. Each performance becomes an immersive journey through sonic spaces, guided by modular structures and improvised sections. This work invites listeners into a transcultural world where musical idioms converge in a seamless exploration of boundary-less sound. Amir El Saffar Composer, trumpeter, santur player, and vocalist, Amir ElSaffar has been described as “uniquely well positioned to reconcile jazz and Arabic music” (The Wire) and as “one of the most promising figures in jazz today” (Chicago Tribune). A recipient of the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award and the 2018 US Artists Fellowship, ElSaffar is a classically trained trumpet expert who not only masters the language of contemporary jazz, but has also developed techniques for playing the microtones and idiomatic ornamentations of Arabic music—elements not usually heard on the trumpet. He is also a transmitt…