About the Ensemble
Bridge-builder between the Occident and the Orient
Building Bridges between cultures and to send an indirect message to the audience, creating an positive image about the Egyptian Culture Heritage was the reason why Basem Darwisch founded the German/Egyptian Band Cairo Steps in 2003 .
Cairo Steps merges and combines traditional Egyptian and oriental grooves with modern jazz and classics, using vocal inserts with old Arabic poems. It is a mix between improvisation, classical music and contemporary sounds. The music is influenced by spiritual ethnic music as well as European music traditions and alternates between strong unison rhythms, virtuoso solos and meditative soundscapes. The result is a unique music style and an exciting blend of various cultures.
Basem could manage to make Cairo Steps plays the role of the umbrella that has all of the different musical genres and experiences merged together all the way from spiritual chants to modern classics with their own flavor and to pursues the vision of crossing cultural, political and religious borders and building bridges between the occident and the orient. Basem Darwisch’s Vision is to present the audience with a tense spiritual musical experience as language that can help them transcend over their earthly matters and to use the concert to create an atmosphere of tolerance and acceptance of other and different cultures advocating the motto “Music is the bonding force”
His Vision is also to leave a positive impression about the Egyptian culture heritage through short speeches , visuals and introductions during Cairo Steps concerts in Europe in very well-known opera houses and Theaters e.g. Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Philharmonie Berlin, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Prinzregententheater München, Theaterhaus Stuttgart , Kuwait , Abou Dhabi and Cairo Opera House etc.
German Jazz Award 2018 for the Album Flying Carpet together with Quadro Nuevo.
