Since 2010, famed Turkish Darbuka prodigy Ahmet Yıldırım aka Mısırlı Ahmet has been holding an annual workshop for percussionists of all specialties and expertise levels in Nuweiba’s Maagana Camp. This event is known as the Sinai International Rhythm Camp, an adjunct to Mısırlı’s original International Rhythm Camp currently held annually in the forests of Edremit, in Ahmet’s native Turkey under the umbrella of his Istanbul-based Rhythm House Sschool.
Born in Ankara in 1963 and starting out to play darbuka at 17. He claims to have been just another ordinary player before embarking on a journey to Egypt to learn from mythical darbuka masters, a journey on-which he collaborated with artists like Fathy Salama and Omar Khairat, a period during which he also developed his unique split finger technique. Eventually joining Salama’s Sharkiat ensemble in 1991 and recording his first album in Cairo in the following year.
After almost two decades of touring the world for performances and workshops, Mısırlı started his annual workshop in Turkey, soon after adding another annual Sinai edition. The Sinai workshop revolves around Ahmet’s belief that "You have to lose the rhythm in order to find it,” and percussionists will be given the space to improvise fearlessly, since, after all, environments like the desert helped shape Yldırım’s technique himself.
So if you’re an amateur, semi-professional or professional percussionist or even perhaps a flute, guitar or clarinet player, you can join Ahmet in the Nuweiba desert this year for any duration between the 6th and the 21st of October, just make sure you apply through the Facebook event page.
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