Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on April 20, 2024

Maurice El Medioni, an Algerian-born pianist who fused Jewish and Arab musical traditions into a singular style he called Pianoriental, died on March 25 in Herzliya, on Israels central coast. He was 95.

His death, at a nursing home, was confirmed by his manager, Yvonne Kahan.

Mr. Medioni was one of the last representatives of a once vibrant Jewish-Arab musical culture that flourished in North Africa before and after World War II and proudly drew from both heritages.

In Oran, the Algerian port where he was born, he was sought after by Arabs and Jews alike to play at weddings and at banquets in the years between the war and 1961, when the threat of violence and Algerias new independence from France drove Mr. Medioni and thousands of other Jews to flee.

With his bounding octaves, his quasi-microtonal shifts in the style of traditional Arab music, his cheeky rumba rhythms learned from American G.I.s after the 1942 Allied invasion, and his roots in the Jewish-Arab musical heritage called andalous, Mr. Medioni had honed a distinctive piano style by his early 20s.

The singers he accompanied often alternated phrases in French and Arabic in a style known as Franarabe. His uncle Messaoud El Medioni was a famous musician known as Saoud LOranais, a leading practitioner of andalous, who was deported by the Germans to the Sobibor death camp in 1943 and killed there.

The Medioni style remained buried and nearly forgotten for four decades as Mr. Medioni pursued his trade as a mens tailor. He kept it alive in private, performing at weddings and bar mitzvahs after he was forced to flee to France. Then, in 1996, when he was 68, he released a breakthrough album, Caf Oran. Its success led to a belated second life as a star of so-called world music concert tours in Europe, appearances in documentary films and a major role as mentor to a new generation of Israeli musicians anxious to recover the musical heritage of their Sephardic heritage.

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Maurice El Medioni, Pianist Who Fused Jewish and Arab Music, Dies at 95 - The New York Times

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