Anouar Brahem

Anouar Brahem draws on the rich traditions of Arab music in his work, while at the same time engaging in a dialogue with the wider world and finding inspiration in a variety of other cultures. His twelfth album for ECM Records, After the Last Sky, embodies many of the defining qualities of his music: an exceptional sensitivity to silence and its resonance in space, elegance of expression and form, a constant oscillation between melancholy and ecstasy, and a constant drive to transcend boundaries. As on his previous recording Blue Maqams (2017, ECM), Brahem is joined by two outstanding improvisers with decades of experience in modern jazz – bassist Dave Holland (who will be replaced in concert by the excellent Norwegian bassist Mats Eilertsen) and pianist Django Bates. At the same time, a new voice from the world of European classical music enters the ensemble – cellist Anja Lechner (who, like Brahem, records for ECM), bringing a delicate lyricism to the album, with the cello emerging as one of its central voices.

Anouar Brahem will appear at the Viva Musica! festival in his Slovak premiere on Wednesday, July 15, 2026, at 8:00 PM at the Slovak Radio Building in Bratislava. “It is a joy for me to perform in Bratislava for the firsts time and to share my music with the festival audience. Joined by Anja Lechner on cello, Django Bates on piano, and Mats Eilertsen on double bass, I will perform After the Last Sky, a program whose title, borrowed from the poet Mahmoud Darwish, carries fragility, gravity, and hope – as a way of never surrendering to darkness,” said Anouar Brahem.

Listening to Brahem’s music means experiencing a sense of closeness – a fragile, ever-renewed dialogue between four exceptional musicians, rooted in trust, shared belonging, and a common intention to venture into the “unknown,” which Brahem describes as his favourite territory. The album After the Last Sky is both a refuge from a world that has grown harsher, louder, and more violent, and a quiet act of resistance against it.