Playing Human Connectedness with Amir ElSaffar

On January 27, 2022, AFSACK hosted the fourth installment of its Salon Series with composer, trumpeter, santur player, and vocalist Amir ElSaffar, in conversation with ethnomusicologist and performer-composer Payam Yousefi.

Amir ElSaffar has been described as “uniquely poised to reconcile jazz and Arabic music,” (the Wire) and “one of the most promising figures in jazz today” (Chicago Tribune). A recipient of the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award and a 2018 US Artist Fellow, ElSaffar is an expert trumpeter with a classical background, conversant not only in the language of contemporary jazz, but has created techniques to play microtones and ornaments idiomatic to Arabic music that are not typically heard on the trumpet.

Follow Amir ElSaffar on Instagram and Facebook for the latest, or check out his website, www.amirelsaffar.com.