Ayman Fanous and Tomas Ulrich

Ayman Fanous Ayman Fanous began classical violin studies at age seven and switched to the guitar at twelve. Mostly self-taught, he was first exposed to flamenco at age fifteen and absorbed as much of the great players as he could, especially Paco de Lucia. A chance encounter with Ornette Coleman's playing in high school led him on a path of discovery which has included serialism, free jazz, and several of the world's great improvisational music traditions. He began honing a unique approach to the guitar playing four-hour long weekly sets of solo improvisation as a student at the University of Virginia. All these influences, as well as the middle eastern essences that have surrounded him since childhood in Egypt, led to his developing a unique sound which synthesizes ancient and modern voices. He is the only guitarist to bring classical and flamenco guitar technique deeply into contemporary free improvisation. These two worlds, although disparate, share much: fiery virtuosity, a genesis in pain, and historical disenfranchisement. He has given hundreds of solo performances, and has performed in duos with Bern Nix, Jason Hwang, and William Parker, as well as in Simon Shaheen's Near East Music Ensemble. Several of these have been broadcast live on U.S. and Spanish television and radio. Guitar Player magazine praised his "passionate execution and wicked tremolando", while Richmond's Style Weekly said "it would be fair to call [him] a musical visionary". Fanous has long rejected the false category of the "professional" musician. He has espoused, rather, an approach to being a musician that is not defined by how one earns his living, but by the way one breathes, walks, laughs, perceives and reacts to the world. He has long been inspired by radical mavericks who have taught us new ways of seeing and being, outside the academy, and who were often attached to non-artistic, and sometimes mundane existences: Franz Kafka and Charles Ives (insurance executives), Alexander Borodin (chemist), Naguib Mahfouz (civil servant), Octavio Paz (diplomat). Fanous earned a B.A. in Philosophy at the University of Virginia, and an M.D. from Virginia Commonwealth University. He completed a residency in Psychiatry at New York University/Bellevue and research training at VCU. He currently holds faculty appointments in the Departments of Psychiatry at both VCU and Georgetown Universities, concentrating on schizophrenia genetics research. These pursuits, he has found, have lent greater urgency and inspiration to his music than any lessons: the monastic drudgery of writing code for statistical analysis, skeleton-shift evaluations of unchecked and labyrinthine psychosis, the harrowing narratives of society's most vulnerable and dispossessed.

Cellist-composer Tomas Ulrich received music degrees from Boston University and the Manhattan School of music. Jazz Now has characterized him as "the total package. incredible chops, great imagination, and superb pitch. He fulfills the roles of bassist, guitarist, and additional horn player and is endlessly talented and creative." After attending a performance by the great Soviet cellist Mstislav Rostropovich at the age of eight, Mr. Ulrich was inspired to begin his musical journey on the cello. In addition to the traditional classical repetoire, Mr. Ulrich's work clearly demonstrates the influence of such diverse artists as Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy, Dmitri Shostakovich and Olivier Messiaen. Mr. Ulrich has performed and recorded with such diverse artists as Anthony Davis, Joe Lovano, Gerry Hemingway, Derek Bailey, Anthony Braxton, Simon Shaheen, Herb Robertson, Dominic Duval, Ben Allison, Kevin Norton, Ted Nash, Uri Caine, Dave Douglas, Mark Whitecage, Mark Feldman, Jason Hwang, Gregor Huebner, Ivo Perelman, Dom Minasi and Ken Filiano. He is also a member of the Diller-Quaile String Quartet, which premiered his Quintet for Trumpet and Strings (featuring guest soloist Herb Robertson) in May of 1996. He has written music for theater, film, and instrumental performance and has concertized in Europe, Japan, South America, Canada, and throughout the United States. Mr. Ulrich can be heard on more than sixty CDs in a wide variety of musical styles and settings.

Fanous and Ulrich met while both were playing in Simon Shaheen's Near East Music Ensemble and quickly realized they had a mutual love of free improvisation. Middle Eastern classical music provided a common point of reference, given flamenco's Arabic roots, Fanous' Egyptian origins, and Ulrich's discovery of a more profound musical emotionality in this repertoire. They soon began giving regular performances of duo improvisation. The chemistry was immediately evident, as two unique combinations of collective musical memory ran against one another, collided, and embraced. The cello's dark-wood tones provided a warm and anguished mooring for the guitar's searching, restless arpeggios. Flurries of violent rasguedos from the guitar fueled impassioned single-note lines from the cello. The duo has performed at several venues in New York, including the Knitting Factory and the Stone. They have mostly remained under the radar, however, preferring to enrich and deepen their unique improvisational language as it is nourished by a constant stream of unconscious material, away from the harsh glare of commercial and critical pressures. However, they have recently completed work on their first c.d., and this unique and authentic musical expression will soon be available to the listening public.