The Alchemist

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Amro Salah has always trusted his instincts to achieve some truly impossible dreams – from owning a secret laboratory in his youth, to founding a band “Eftekesat” (literally means Spontaneous invnentions) and running Cairo International Jazz Festival.

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The pianist

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Amro Salah grew up in a house bathed in music. The radio was always playing; introducing Salah to a variety of genres, and his mother was a piano teacher, and also his first teacher to his lifelong instrument.

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Music was the constant refrain for Amro Salah. His mother, a piano teacher, taught Salah how to read notes and gave him the first taste of music. As did the radio, which Salah remembers as an important part in shaping his musical character, having introduced him to a variety of musical styles.

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Amro first trained in classical music, then with a love for the Beatles, Salah went backwards in time discovering the music of the fifties and forties till he found Jazz.

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At the age of 15, he began composing his own melodies. Salah recalls his college years when he met poets, scriptwriters, actors, musicians the most productive years of writing lyrics. Amro has written a number of music scores for documentaries, short films, and TV soaps and programs.

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Amro Salah has become one of the most recognised jazz artists on the Egyptian jazz scene that started to grow in the mid 1990s. He has had involvement in numerous different jazz projects and ensembles starting with the band Afro Jam, together with the later bassist Hasan Khalil.

In 1999, he made a debut European tour where he was called to join The Yehia Khalil Jazz Band with a performance in the International Music Day in Italy, followed by shows at the Bansko Jazz Festival, Bulgaria, Nisville Jazz fest (Serbia), San Jose Jazz fest (USA), PANAF. He has performed also with the Ahmad Rabee jazz fusion quartet, Salah Ragab, the Gwen Perry Trio, Christine Gordon, Louise Mills , Elvis Stanic, Tommy Smith, Naseer Shamma, Edmar Castaneda, Theodosii Spassov and Ross Daly 

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In 2002, he founded the World fusion group Eftekasat, with the concept to lead the alternative/underground music scene in Egypt and encourage more production of diverse music projects . Eftekasat has succeeded to establish it self as a pioneer in jazz fusion, with a series of acclaimed performances in Cairo and in international festivals. The bands first album was released in 2006 and was followed by 2 more albums in 2010, 2015

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Amro Salah’s name goes alongside jazz in Egypt. He is the founder and organizer of the annual Cairo Jazz Festival and The Jazz Society of Egypt founded in 2009. 

 

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