Hamza El Din

Pictures

hamza-el-din-707573

Listen to, buy or share

Buy

Tags

Everyone’s tags

More tags

Biography

Hamza El Din {حمزة علاء الدين} (b. Toshka, Egypt, July 10, 1929 - d. Berkeley, California, May 22, 2006) was a Nubian oud player, tar player, and singer.


Born on 10th July 1929 in the Egyptian village of Toshka, near Wadi Halfa, he originally trained to be an electrical engineer. El Din changed direction and began to study music at the Cairo University, continuing his studies at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. His performances attracted the attention of the Grateful Dead, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan in the 1960s, which led to a recording contract and to his eventual emigration to the United States. Like much of Egyptian Nubia, his home village of Toshka was flooded due to the construction of the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s, creating in El Din a drive to preserve and promote his culture.

His 1968 recording Escalay: the Water Wheel was claimed as an influence by some American minimalist composers, such as Steve Reich and Terry Riley. He performed with the Kronos Quartet.

El Din held a number of teaching positions in the United States during the 1980s and 1990s, eventually settling in the San Francisco Bay Area. He died on 22nd May 2006 at the age of seventy-six, after complications following surgery for a gallbladder infection at a hospital in Berkeley, California. He is survived by his wife, Nabra.

* Official site

Top Albums

Listening Trend

34,278listeners all time
183,640scrobbles all time
Recent listeners trend:

Start scrobbling and track your listening history

Last.fm users scrobble the music they play in iTunes, Spotify, Rdio and over 200 other music players.

Create a Last.fm profile

Shoutbox

Leave a comment. Log in to Last.fm or sign up.
  • Yavuz_S_Selim

    good stuff

    30 Apr 1:15pm Reply
  • lll__

    good stuff

    14 Feb 6:53pm Reply
  • Bo2sBlackFlame

    (Y)

    12 Jul 2012 Reply
  • NedZarathoustra

    Waw!

    22 Feb 2012 Reply
  • DanoSediq

    amazing

    15 Jan 2012 Reply
  • lodyforyou

    madness!

    30 Sep 2011 Reply
  • NINlife

    this guy means serious business

    5 Sep 2011 Reply
  • MachinesAreUs

    as darthsketch put it: beautiful.

    19 Jul 2011 Reply
  • darthsketch

    beautiful. a treasure.

    28 Mar 2011 Reply
  • Adjar-one

    (L)

    17 Dec 2010 Reply
  • EchEm

    All what you expect from an instrument and Rebuffed, In its simplest possible.

    29 Nov 2010 Reply
  • preritjain

    soothing

    9 Sep 2010 Reply
  • Neueklick

    @koolsamarkand: http://j.mp/aerCz6

    27 Aug 2010 Reply
  • HADOPIRE

    Music of Nubia is a great album

    18 Jun 2010 Reply
  • Texho_Ded

    PM me your MSN or IQC uin, i`ll give some links

    28 Feb 2010 Reply
  • koolsamarkand

    Hello, looking for a download of some of this fantastic music. Anyone got a link?

    11 Feb 2010 Reply
  • raef_ismail

    Hamza here is playing the music of " Mohamed Abd ElWahab " from "om Kolthoum's " song " Fakarouni" , which means : they reminded me , and from which Hamza called this track " I remember "

    8 Dec 2009 Reply
  • B0di

    You didn't make that point clear in the first post.... informally Asian mean "Mongolian" people from East and Southeast Asia..I'm Nubian so I know what I'm talking about.. Culturally speaking Nubians are Arabs. Like most of the Arab countries that had it's own languages and cultures but in the end they formed a mix between them and the Arabic culture... And why not 100% cause there are Nubian tribes in chad and the surrounding areas

    25 Aug 2009 Reply
  • -tgt-

    hmm.. Syria is in southwest Asia not in the Caucasus. There's no "Asian race" it's the most phenotypically diverse continent on the planet (no surprise being the largest by far), There are Caucasoid Asians like in Saudia and Iran, There are East Asians there are even Black Asian people like the Andaman Islanders and Aborigine Southeast Asian peoples like the Aeta in the Philipines and the Mani of Thailand. And 90%? why not 100% at that? It is an unspoken scientific fact that most of the north Sudanese are Arabized Nubians, they don't see themselves as Nubians, does that make em 90% Nubian?

    20 Aug 2009 Reply
  • B0di

    Commenting on the post below me,... 90% of the Nubians are Arabs!! ( most of them are concentrated in Egypt and Sudan) they speak Arabic beside their own Nubian language,, You were right about the Language point,,, but the Syrians became suddenly Asian?!! I know it's in Asia but they are of Caucasian ethnicity and Arabic culture!

    17 Aug 2009 Reply
  • All 44 shouts