The last time the American singer and Oud Player Aliya Cycon performed her Global Jazz/Pop music at La Batisfera in Valencia was just over two years ago. As always, she had butterflies in her stomach, but it turns out there was something more going on; just a few days later she and her Jazz Trumpeter husband Timotej Kotnik found out they were expecting a baby girl.
“That moment changed me and my music forever. It’s as if all my creative and inspired energy went towards our baby and I needed to pause my music-making,” Cycon reflects about her decisions made in early 2023. “I had a deep sense that I was meant to focus everything on my family, and not just for my family’s sake. I knew with certainty that my music and my identity needed time to mature with me, and that when the right moment presented itself I would be back on the stage performing, but as a transformed person.”
And that is exactly what happened. During the first two years of their daughter’s life, Cycon paused her public performing and touring, but continued practicing and even diving deeper into her passion for Arabic Music on her Oud. She opened a Patreon page, where she created an online community of Oud players and hosted monthly online workshops, and even launched an in-person music retreat this September which welcomed Oud players to Valencia from Iraq, Jordan, Germany, USA, Lebanon and Belgium.
“On the final night of my Music Retreat, I posted that we would be doing an informal final concert to celebrate my retreater’s achievements. As a response to that post, La Batisfera reached out to me to invite me to perform in November. I knew that this was the moment I had been certain would come, and I felt ready.”
This Friday, November 7th at 8pm, Aliya Cycon Project will perform on the same stage she last played on in 2023, this time having just celebrated their daughter’s 2nd birthday.
Artists joining her will be:
Jean Madani (Lebanon) – bass
Hussein al-Rob (Palestine) – percussion
Special Guests:
Timotej Kotnik (Slovenia) – trumpet
Omran Adrah (Syria) – qanun
Lili del Sol (Colombia) – voice
Facebook event:
LA BATISFERA cafeteria libreria
Calle de la Reina 167: Calle Carlos Ros 32
El Cabanyal
46011
Valencia
Tel: 962 04 58 45
Tel:96 2045845
For opening hours and more info:
Related Post
Leave a comment