Nazih Borish | Mehmet Polat Quartet

The ud, the Arabic lute

On our stage we welcome two innovators of the age-old string instrument, the Syrian soloist Nazih Borish and the originally Turkish Mehmet Polat and his band. Nazih Borish taught himself to play the ud from the age of five and developed rapidly.

He sounded so unique because he applied techniques from jazz, flamenco and Indian music to the ud for the first time. In his hometown of Latakia, Syria, he founded his own school to teach ud and took over a hundred students under his wing. Since 2016, he continues his musical mission in Montreal.

Ud player and composer Mehmet Polat brings three versatile players on board for his new quartet. The compositions, inspired by various movements, are created through contemplation, experiment, emotions, adventure and virtuosity.

Polat composes with freedom and regularly chooses less common odd time signatures. In this way he shows affinity with contemporary jazz. In his band, double bass and drums lay the foundation for the melodic ud and piano lines.