| I was born in Amman in a well-known family that mastered arts of all kinds for more than 100 years. My late grandfather (Omar Faqir a Qanoon player), and my father . My father (Hasan Faqir; Nai player) taught me the basics of Arabic and classical music. I started listening to all styles of music since my early childhood. My father used to invite the greatest musicians to our house and I used to sit and listen to their music. Because of this deep listening, I was able to memorize a considerable amount of our Oriental music along with classical, Indian, Armenian, Greek, and Turkish music. At the age of 9 I was introduced to jazz music along with legendary jazz musicians such as: Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillesspie, John Coltrane, miles Davis, Louis Armstrong…etc. Then, I started listening to contemporary jazz musicians such as Chick Corea , Al Di Meola, Paco di Lucia, Weather Report, Yellow Jackets and many others. I overcome many hardships finding such recordings and scores by scoring jazz standards by myself. As Chick Corea being my main influence, I felt that piano is the instrument that would fulfill my musical ambitions. So, I started learning music theory and piano grades by myself while listening deeply to Jazz until I was 18. |
| I developed my own technique on piano that blends the Qanoon (an Arabic string instrument) technique with the piano's. I believe that any instrument limitations are because of the player himself… any instrument has the ability to produce tremendous melodies only if the musician is UNLIMITED. In the last few years I met many Jordanian talents - guitarists, pianists - who wanted to learn Jazz. I 'm still helping those talented musicians. Some of them have their own bands now and performing abroad...good luck for them. |
| One of my dreams was to study jazz at Berklee College of Music – being the dream of every jazz musician in the world – I started E- mailing Berklee and I was granted a scholarship to Berklee Collage of Music ...something that happened for the first time in Jordan.( …our evaluation team had many enthusiastic comments regarding your music and we encourage you to continue to develop your skills as a musician…) … ( …we congratulate you for your outstanding musical achievements to date…) from Berklee letter of scholarship acceptance. The scholarship gave me confidence and energy to fulfill my musical journey. In the age of 20, I started to feel the Eastern sense of music in my compositions and I began developing my main aim – philosophy – of music…"Bridging the world with Music". I realized that if I want my native music to reach every part of the world it should be musically globalized… in the sense that who ever listens to my music feels that there is a part that concerns him/her. |
| A number of major musical events happened in my life…I started to compose pieces of music that combine: jazz-fusion, eastern rhythms along with Arabic instruments. I composed many pieces of music that combine the classical instruments playing jazz style along with (Nai – an Arabic ancient wind instrument) .One of which is entitled (My Summer Dream) that was recorded by the National Conservatory orchestra and my father ( Hasan Faqir) played the Nai solo. It was a challenge for me to introduce such a blend and a great challenge for my father to play such a complicated and high technique on that instrument. Later on, it was performed by The Bruksaal orchestra in Germany. I just finished recording an album with Mr. Noah Howard in my own studio. This album is the result of Noah's great melodies with my Oriental-flavored orchestration. |
| I should mention how inspiring was – and still - the Jordanian environment upon my music and myself. I'm a lover of visiting different places in Jordan because I believe that artists should absorb spirituality from their own place of birth. And because Jordan is very rich with such inspiring places, I decided to visit each place in Jordan looking for more things to hear, things to behold, and things to enrich my desire as a |
| The founder of Jazz in Jordan |
