Thread: Syrian or Armenian music recommendations?

I have a gram this weekend and the clients are Syrian and Armenian. I have NO Syrian or Armenian music. Does anyone have any good recommendations that I can download? Something that will get them up dancing at the end of the show would be great! Thanks!

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Farid Atrash Syrian? I know he played in all of the Egyptian films but he is from Syria I think.

Here is a link to Syria Live. Hope it helps you.
http://www.syrialive.net/music/top10.htm

Syrians would be fine with Arabic music - either Egyptian or Lebanese belly dancing music would be fine.

There are lots of fun Armenian songs. Tamzara is a 9/8 - it's on the album Armenia Armenia. Soode Soode is an upbeat one that would work for getting the audience up to dance, also Garoon Garoon. If you do American style veil work, Norits Karoon Yegav is a nice Armenian song for that, but it's not what I would use for audience participation. Harry Saroyan has some good songs with Armenian lyrics on his CD's - Varter (which is Erev Shel Shoshanim's melody with Armenian lyrics) is good for veil work, and Aman Aman is good for audience participation.

I know I can use Arabic music and I probably will for most of it. But I'd love to be able to pull out a Syrian or Armenian song to get them up dancing at the end. Thanks for all your recommendations!!

If you're looking for audience participation songs that the Syrians would like, one good possibility could be a debke. Though I'm not sure how Syrian debke steps would differ from Lebanese ones. Songs like Haddouni, Haddouni or Al Nedda (sometimes written as "A Nada") come to mind.

Richard Hagopian is as far as I know Armenian - apart from Gypsy Fire (a must-have), he also has a couple of really fun kef CDs out.

Hossam Ramzy produced a CD of Traditional Songs of Syria with vocals by Zein al Jundi. Here is a link to music by her that you can download:
http://zeinaljundi.calabashmusic.com/

I like the Cd a lot, her voice is rich and beautiful. There are well-known songs like Lammah Badah and Ya Ein Moulayyetein plus others I didn't know. The instrumentation is also traditional.

"eastern gatherings" by jim karagozian.he actually works with hagopian.this is his solo cd,separate from the band "mirage".
a wonderful routene from that cd can be put together.

George wassouf would be a great choice, Farid is also another great choice.

They love OmKalthoum.

They love Debke. When i went to Syria last year Fares Karam was all the rage(He is Lebanese) . he has great Debke music.

Also they went wild for Nancy.

There is a Syrian pop singer with beautiful Large eyes but for some reason her name has slipped from my mind. her music is ok.

Just looked it up, her name is Asala Nasri

Asala has many great modern love songs. Sorry for the thread hi jack.

Sorry for continuing the thread hijack, and thanks for the nice bit about Asala.

I wouldn't consider her stuff great for dancing, but she's considered the only female artist since Oum Koulthoum to warrant the appellation "sit" (uber-respectful title for woman?). Wow! You know it's hard to get respect over there as a woman.

Hi there!

Pe-Ko international has a CD by a group called orchestra al andalus. The group is syrian & it's a nice cd with syrian & egyptian music (played syrian style of course).

If you would like classic, Sabah Fakri is always good with a wide variety of songs to dance to... He also sings mwoshahat with 9/8 rhythms too, but the recordings are hard to find in the states.

Have a great show!

-T