Call to Prayer Ghalia Benali & Romina Lischka

• Ghalia Benali:
• 1Tounes03:22
• Antoine Forqueray (167 - 1745):
• 2Le Carillon de Passy (Pièce de viole, Suite No .4 en Sol Mineur)04:21
• Ghalia Benali:
• 3Mosabbeb al Asbab03:30
• Romina Lischka, Ghalia Benali:
• 4Raga Bhairav - Awatadhkourou06:17
• Marin Marais (1656 - 1728):
• 5Le Moulinet (3e livre de pièce de viole, suite No. 6 en Sol Mineur)04:28
• Ghalia Benali, Marin Marais:
• 6Nouh Al Hamam - Rondeau moitié pincé et moitié coup d'archet (5e livre de pièces de viole, Suite No. 1 en La Mineur, Arr. Romina Lischka)04:48
• Vincent Noiret:
• 7Prelude01:46
• Romina Lischka, Ghalia Benali:
• 8Raga Yaman - Ra'aa Al Barq07:41
• Marin Marais, Ghalia Benali:
• 9Le Badinage (4e livre de pièces de viole, Suite d'un goût étranger) - La Talumi05:55
• Ghalia Benali:
• 10Teryaq05:58
• Ghalia Benali, Marin Marais:
• 11Jaa Rasoul - Prélude en harpegement (5e livre de pièces de viole, Suite No. 3 en Fa Mineur, Arr. by Romina Lischka)02:01
• Jean de Sainte-Colombe, Ghalia Benali, Romina Lischka:
• 12Prélude en sol - Dama Daiman - Raga Bhairavi12:26
• Marin Marais, Ghalia Benali:
• 13Les Folies d'Espagne (2e livre de pièce de viole, Suite No.1 en Ré Mineur) - Shahoubat Rouhy09:06
• Total Runtime01:11:39

Info for Call to Prayer

The viol player and Hathor Consort director Romina Lischka, a specialist in early European music, and the Tunisian singer, dancer, poet and actress Ghalia Benali, ambassador of Arab music, join forces in this fascinating project in order to explore the intersection of their musical cultures. In combining for instance music by Marin Marais with classical Arab maqams on Arab poetry and with classical Indian Dhrupad ragas, they reveal the universal truth in music and poetry of different cultural and historical contexts and grasp their common spirit. A dialogue that takes the soul on a journey back to the first prayer that ascended... Coming from totally different backgrounds, Romina’s and Ghalia’s experience of common ground and mutual understanding underlines the connecting elements in different cultures – a powerful message in our day. The harmony emanating from their musical venture deeply touches concert audiences of all cultures, and has now finally been recorded.

“Adhan” is the muezzin’s call to prayer and recollection in the Islamic world. The human voice’s melismas interrupt daily activities, encouraging Muslims to listen, to make time for an instant of spirituality. This art influences the Tunisian singer Ghalia Benali, who likes to blend various musical traditions, much like the Austrian musician Romina Lischka, who is a talented viola da gamba player. She has started learning dhrupad, the oldest genre in Hindustani classical music. The two discovered they shared a passion for Marin Marin and his mysterious teacher, Mr de Sainte-Colombe’s compositions for viola da gamba. These are very versatile and include dances and character pieces. The deep sonority of this instrument and the intimate nature of these compositions also encourage contemplation and meditation. These two highly talented artists invite you to explore this music’s many emotional layers in the unique setting of the Protestant Chapel.

Ghalia Benali, vocals
Romina Lischka Dhrupad, viola da gamba, vocals
Vincent Noiret, double-bass

Ghalia Benali
is a singer and artist of Tunisian origin, living in Belgium. Different cultures, East and West come together in her art work, as well as in her biography. Ghalia was born in Brussels; however, four years later, her parents decided to return home and she found herself in a small town of Zarzis in south of Tunisia, not far from the island of Djerba. There, between the eternal blue colors of the sky and sea and the same eternal yellow sands of Sahara, the time stood still, and the tourists and radio were the only links to the world outside. There, in the provincial wilderness, adoring to sing and dance, little Ghalia had no other music teachers than her mother. Recitations of the Quran, Indian and Egyptian films, voices of Arab music stars Om Kalthoum and Adib al-Dayikh were the first impressions forming the taste of talented girl… Much later it has developed into a special mix of anything in multicultural Belgium where Ghalia went to study art. There she began to sing and perform professionally by the late 1990s.

The idea to re-visit the songs of the Arab Diva with a small band, trying to get not exactly to the sound, but to the spirit of the great performer brought on a breakthrough project, the album "Ghalia Benali Sings Om Kalthoum" released in 2010. Numerous TV appearances in Egypt, Lebanon and other Arab countries have followed. Among her earlier CDs are the bright big label debut "Wild Harissa" (2001, Network), Indo-Arab fusion "Nada" (2002), mystical love story of East and West “Romeo & Leila" (2006) and Ghalia’s personal offering to the Indian sage Sri Aurobindo and the great Sufi woman saint Rabi'a al-Adawiyya, "Al Palna" (2008, with Bert Cornelis). In 2008 she won the World of Music Award for the best world music song, presented by an independent British organization “We Are Listening”.

In the second decade of XXI century Ghalia has found her spiritual home in Egypt, which rich musical culture inspired her for new projects: the series of ambient sounding and looking clips for YouTube and Soundcloud with her singing the poetry of contemporary Arab authors, mainly Egyptian. Two more big projects were unveiled this year: a special re-introduction of “Al Palna” for the Egyptian audience and an exquisite revision of traditional Arab takht ensemble changing strings for brass, presented at Makan in May.

Ghalia is also involved in cinema business, she was starring in Moufida Tlatli's movie "A Season of Men” (2000), "Swing" by Tony Gatliff (2002), Leyla Bouzid’s first long movie, “When I Open My Eyes”, coming out in September 2015, and collaborated with Egyptian director Mohamed Hisham for his short film “Jareedy” as an actress, a singer and a music composer.

Romina Lischka
studied viola da gamba with Paolo Pandolfo at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (Basel, Switzerland) and was awarded her soloist diploma “with distinction” in 2006. She continued her studies with Philippe Pierlot at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels where she received her Master's diploma "with distinction” in 2008.

Since graduation, Romina has worked as a free-lance gambist with ensembles such as Collegium Vocale (Philippe Herreweghe), Gli Angeli Genève and Il Gardelino. Her concert activities have brought her to prestigious concert halls and festivals throughout Europe, Russia, Asia, North and South America.

In 2012, Romina performed the premier of George Benjamin's opera Written on Skin at the festival in Aix-en-Provence and has travelled with this production to the Opéra Comique in Paris and the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. She has also toured with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra throughout Europa (Teatro Real Madrid, Barbican London, etc.) and with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra in China (Beijing Music Festival, etc.).

In the 2012-13 concert season, Romina was chosen as the early music "ECHO Rising Star" by the BOZAR (Brussels) and Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), which resulted in solo performances at various European concert venues.

Romina can be heard on numerous CDs on the labels Coro, Flora, Ricercar, Christophorus, Musica Ficta, Fuga Libera en Paraty. Her debut CD Pièces de viole de Sietur de Machy received the top 5 star rating by Diapason. The CD En Suite - Marin Marais, Sainte Colombe & Robert de Visée was awarded the Klara prize for “best classical CD of 2015.”

Alongside her activities as a gambist, Romina also studied North Indian classical singing (dhrupad) at the World Music department at the Rotterdam Conservatory (Bachelor, 2010) and in India (Delhi and Pune) with Ustad Fariduddin Dagar en Uday Bhawalkar.

Combining all her musical interests, Romina formed the Hathor Consort in 2012 to perform not only Renaissance and Baroque consort music, but also modern works and world music.

For the seaseon 2019-20 Romina is Portrayed Artist of Bozar. She has received the KLARA Award - Soloist of the Year 2018.

Booklet for Call to Prayer