Dominik Schneider & Ensemble Sanstierce - Nostre Dame (2016)

Three musicians met in 2014 in the Cologne Center for Early Music ZAMUS and decided to form an ensemble: SANSTIERCE (بلا بعدا ثلاثيا) - Maria Jonas (Cologne), singing, Dominik Schneider (Essen), flute and Quinterne and Bassem Hawar (Baghdad, now based in Cologne), djoze, an Iraqi Fidel. All three are proven specialists of modal music. With vocals by Jonas, Schneider on the flute and quinterna, and Hawar on the djoze, the group set out to bring life to the orally conveyed, hardly notated music of the Middle Ages. Seeing how traditional Arabic music of central Baghdad, which also has medieval roots, doesn't die from generation to generation, transmitted from ear to ear, the iraqui went there a few years ago in order to be on site and very close to the original, and his request was to bring this music, back to life in Cologne ... or Berlin, or Paris, or London. This is the group’s first CD, and the pieces chosen here are based on French medieval songs of the 13th century and Arabic classical music, just as their instrumental original compositions are also applied here, presenting what could be best described as contemporary modal music. The instrumentalists accompany the vocals in traditional fashion: with modal improvisations.