Across Disciplines: Alia Ali & Tarek Yamani

Virtual event
FREE with RSVP

Join multimedia artist Alia Ali and musician/composer Tarek Yamani as the two artists of different disciplines interview one another, discover unexpected connections, and discuss each of their newest projects commissioned by UMS and AANM.

Alia Ali (Arabic: عاليه علي // Sabean: ‎ 𐩲𐩱𐩡𐩺𐩲|𐩲𐩱𐩡) is a Yemeni-Bosnian-US multi-media artist. A child of migrant linguists, Ali has traveled to sixty-seven countries, lived in and between seven, and grown-up among five languages. Her migrations have led her to process the world through interactive experiences and the belief that the damage of translation and interpretation of written language has dis-served particular communities, resulting in the threat of their exclusion, rather than a means of understanding. As an artist who exists on the borders of identifying as West Asian, Eastern European, a United States citizen, queer, culturally Muslim yet spiritually independent, her work explores cultural binaries, challenges culturally sanctioned oppression, and confronts the dualistic barriers of conflicted notions of gender, politics, media, and citizenship. Through her practice, Ali critiques linguistics and inherited political structures and narratives, while simultaneously attempting to counter the polarization and miscommunication that imperils communities across the world, encouraging viewers to confront their own prejudices.

Tarek Yamani is an American-Lebanese New York-based composer and a self-taught jazz pianist dedicated to exploring relationships between African-American Jazz and Arabic rhythms/maqams. He is the recipient of awards such as the Givanas Foundation Grant, Huygens Scholarship, Andrea Elkenbracht Award, Prins Bernhard Culture Fund, Thelonious Monk Composers Competition Prize, Betty Carter Jazz Ahead Residency, New Dutch Composition Contest, and Composer’s Platform Commission by the Abu Dhabi Festival. Tarek has been recently commissioned by UMS (Ann Arbor) to write a new piece for the genre-bending Spektral Quartet to be premiered on October 27th, as part of the UMS Digital Artist Residency.