Rima Khcheich

In the summer of 2008 the new CD Falak of Rima Khcheich Group was released. They presented the CD at the North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam, the Netherlands and in Beirut, Lebanon. The repertoire of the new album consists of traditional and modern Arab songs in western contemporary arrangements: music that brings together two musical cultures of seemingly different directions.

Rima Khcheich started singing at the age of seven, and two years later she became a member of the Arab orchestra and choral in Beirut under the direction of Salim Sahhab. At the age of eleven, she became a soloist with Sahhab’s group, singing the most difficult repertoire in Arabic vocal music. A graduate of The Lebanese National Conservatory of Music and The Lebanese American University, Rima has performed in live performances throughout the Middle East, Europe and the USA specializing in Arab-Andalusian Muwashshahat form, and 19th & 20th century Arabic traditional vocal repertoires. Since 1999, Rima Khcheich is an instructor of Classical Arabic Singing at The Lebanese National Superior Conservatory of Music in Beirut and has been a faculty member of the Annual Arabic Music Retreat at Mount Holyoke College.

In 2002-2003 Rima was part of the successful Arab/Dutch formation Orient Express that featured a/o the members of the Yuri Honing Trio consisting of saxophonist Yuri Honing, Tony Overwater on double bass and drummer Joost Lijbaart. A warm friendship between the musicians developed and they stayed in touch with each other. Early 2006 Rima invited Tony for a special solo project in Beirut. After the war in Lebanon, Rima visited Holland to give an exclusive concert at the international War & Peace Conference in Amsterdam together with the Trio and guitarist Maarten van der Grinten. The result of this performance was so extraordinary, the musicians immediately decided to make plans for the near future. This resulted, besides many other projects and concerts, in the making of the CD Falak.