Universal Music Classics will release a new album on the Deutsche Grammophon imprint of work by Mohammed Fairouz titled Follow, Poet, Jan. 27. The album marks the composer’s debut on the Yellow label, and the first release in the Universal Music Classic’s Return to Language series.
The Return to Language series was created by Universal Music Classics President/CEO Elizabeth Sobol, a lifelong lover of literature. Sobol says it was only natural that the series be launched with Fairouz’s album.
"There is a deep humanity and civic devotion to Mohammed’s music," she says. "For him, music isn’t an abstract art — it has a higher purpose.”
The musical works on this album, "Audenesque" and "Sadat," each exalt the transformative power of language through different means: one poetic, one oratorical. In "Audenesque," Fairouz sets verse by the great 20th-century English poet W.H. Auden and late Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet Seamus Heaney. With "Sadat," the composer evokes in an instrumental work the stirring life-story of slain Egyptian president Anwar Sadat.
Fairouz, only 29, is the youngest composer to have an entire album of works recorded for Deutsche Grammophon in the label’s 115-year history. BBC World News hails Fairouz as “One of the most talented composers of his generation.”
The release of Follow, Poet as the inaugural album in the Return to Language series will be heralded by events featuring musical performances and poetry readings, with symposia, podcasts and UMC collaborations with artists and broadcasters.
“In times like ours, there is an imperative to use and value language more carefully and thoughtfully — a need to listen to and admire thoughtful language as part of our day-to-day lives. Our highest forms of linguistic expression are a defining element — and reflection of — our humanity,” says Fairouz.
For more information on Fairouz and his upcoming album, visit his website.
