São Paulo – He lives in between the Brazilian assai and the Arab hummus, in a mix of references ranging from the kitchen to the stages. The son to a Lebanese mother and an Amazonian father, born in Belém, the capital of the state of Pará, musician Salomão Habib developed his work based on Arab and Brazilian Indian influences. An acoustic guitar player, Habib is preparing a DVD to release in early 2011, when he should perform in Lebanon, a country that he obviously always dreamed of getting to know, by invitation of the Brazilian embassy.
"I intend to make a record focusing on the Arab influence that I had in my formative years," says Habib. "But I want to prepare myself further before doing it," he explains. According to the musician, who also plays the Lebanese and Turkish lutes in addition to the guitar, there is a strong Arab presence in Brazilian music as a whole. "It suffices to say that the acoustic guitar descends from the so-called Moorish guitar and from the Roman guitar," he claims. "Moorish influence can be sensed in flamenco and fado, which came from Spain and Portugal, respectively, both of which are countries that colonized South America," he says.
According to Habib, another shared feature of Brazilian melodies and Arab sounds is the emotional character of both. To exemplify, he recounts a story that happened during a business trip to Berlin, Germany. "I saw this man standing in the street holding three instruments, among them a lute," he says. "The objects were not even for sale, but he agreed to sell me a lute for US$ 100," he claims. "I said goodbye telling him that I was going to study in order to play it, and he told me I would never choose to play an Arab lute. It was the instrument that had to choose me."
Habib has recorded 13 albums, is the director of the Acoustic Guitar Orchestra of Pará, and the professor-founder of the Music Training Course at the University of the State of Pará. Presently, he is also composing 12 Rituais Sinfônicos para Orquestra de Violões (Symphonic Rituals for a Guitar Orchestra), a project that was awarded an artistic creation scholarship by the National Art Foundation (Funarte) in 2009.
In the second half of last year, the musician went on a tour of 88 Brazilian cities (including all of the capitals) that lasted five months and a half, as part of the Sonora Brasil project of the Social Service for Trade (Sesc ). "It was the longest tour ever by a solo artist in Brazil," he says.
In the belly, peace
In his free time, Habib dedicates himself to cultivating his Arab roots. Especially in the kitchen. "I can cook the main dishes of Arab cuisine," he says. "My signature dish, however, is lamb with fig sauce and vermicelli rice," he guarantees. He explains that he learned it all from his mother, Nazaré.
She, by the way, was the one who taught the musician values such as respecting others and the importance of peaceful coexistence. "She wanted to name me Solomon, a very common name among Jews, because she used to say that she wanted to sow peace inside her belly," he says.
To pay tribute to his mother, Habib wrote the tune Amassando o açaí (Crushing the assai), one of his favourites. "I took my inspiration from the sound that came from the bowl as she prepared the fruit, which I used to harvest," he explains. The song is a way of paying back the lesson of peace that he was taught as a child and the Arab heritage that Nazaré left him.
Service
Further information on Salomão Habib:
www.myspace.com/salomaohabib
To hear the tune Amassando o Açaí on You Tube:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP3pvltgqcc
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
