In 2017 the Newlands Festival in Amsterdam asked singer Rima Khcheich and me to perform a concert in their series The Art of the Duo. We put together a program with music ranging from classical Arabic Muwashah to Cole Porter's My heart belongs to Daddy; I arranged the pieces so that I could accompany Rima using just the bass clarinet. We played the concert and loved playing as a duo so much that we decided to continue working on more music. We played a concert at the Amsterdam Grachtenfestival, and then came COVID.

We had to wait over 2 years to get together again, and when we finally did we picked up where we had left off, performing both in Lebanon and the The Netherlands. This duo is still very much a work in progress in that we're constantly looking for new music and trying to improve the pieces that we play. Working with Rima is such a pleasure, I feel very privileged to play with such a great singer.

Get in touch: info [AT] maartenornstein.com