Ibrahim Maalouf – A few melodies … Live at Arènes de Nîmes – Full Concert Video, Qwest TV

We open onto water flowing from the Pradier fountain, and then find ourselves looking at an aerial view of the Nîmes Amphitheatre, it’s perfectly symmetry framed by the camera’s lens.

Back in the Roman period, 24,000 spectators would have experienced the same setting. In the arena, this modern performance is reduced to just a piano, on which Ibrahim Maalouf writes the first notes of “Red & Black Light – Part 1,” the title of his eponymous album released in 2015, an ode to women and their place in building a better future.

In the difficult situation society finds itself in at the time of Qwest TV audio-visual adventure, every word counts. The melody soon rises up in front of the empty bleachers, as school orchestra choirs – young singers dressed in black T-shirts – gradually take off their masks.

The spectators are there in spirit, even though it is music that fills the empty space. The camera’s canny direction both captures and adds to the vocals, as well as François Delporte’s guitar and Ibrahim Maalouf’s trumpet that delivers breathtaking clarity with each note. The two musicians are positioned on top of the bleachers, and continue to play with their backs to the city.

Evening descends. The silence stretches out over the shadows that gather around the lead track from the album, *Diagnostic*, released in October 2011. Then, “Beirut” exorcises the trauma experienced twenty years earlier in the Lebanese capital, while also referring to more recent tragic events in the country.

It is here where the unique register of Ibrahim’s trumpet really counts; the extra piston, created by his father, becomes a symbol, able to progress from the oriental palette, which induces the nonchalant reverie of the innocent bystander, to more tumultuous and agonizing hues, reminiscent of the violence suffered.

A sudden outburst of rock and rage. At nightfall, the space is embellished with luminous adornments, glinting like the tracks that follow one another. The finale is played in the sun, and the schoolboys of a brass ensemble with “Red & Black – Part 2” take their seats, offering rhythm to a youth that blows with all his might.

Tubas, horns, trumpets and trombones, all at full blast. – Marion Paoli

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