who am I?

Guitarist/improvisor/oudist/sarodiyya Mustafa Stefan Dill was born in New Mexico to a Mexican mother and German-Irish father. His mutli-national and cross-cultural childhood experiences include strong memories with Lebanese relatives in Mexico and formative years in the culturally diverse city of Montpellier, France.

His initial music - an intense and unique convergence of traditional flamenco and Middle Eastern elements and modern free improvisation - won critical praise with recordings such as Warning Clothed in Bright Robes of Dawn, Sangre Del Rio, and Six Peaces, paving the way for the current approach of combining modern and traditional improvising techniques within a deep immersion of various cultural musical traditions.

A guitarist for over 30 years, he earned a Masters degree in composition from the New England Conservatory in Boston, studying with Joe Maneri. He has performed in solo concerts throughout Europe since 1992 in both improvised music and guitar circles at such venues and festivals as FMP's Total Music Meeting, Wirral Guitar Festival, Paderborn Guitar Festival, Zuid Nederlands Jazz Festival, Festival HispanoAmericano de la Guitarra, Erlbach, Nickelsdorf, and others.



He has performed with artists such as Cecil Taylor (special invitation as part of the Ensemble, Knitting Factory, May 1996), Guus Janssen (Eindhoven 1995), and more recently with mJane and Out of Context.

He also maintained the adventurous energy of classic progressive rock and free jazz in such projects as the Stefan Dill Trio's release Run For Heaven (2002).

His current focus is the Sama Duo, with percussionist Jefferson Voorhees, a groove-oriented energetic jamrock improv/ free jazz duet with a south Asian twist (think Bill Frisell and late Coltrane guesting with the White Stripes in Calcutta).



Sama' Duo retains an improvisational focus, applying a deep core of both cutting-edge and ancient improvising methods within the musical traditions of India and the Middle East. The Duo reaches into the inner aspects of form and method from the established traditions, adds their previous experience as post-modern improvisors to the process and wraps it all with a rhythmically- driven, wide-ranging classic rock/funk ethos.

The group takes as its name a nuanced Arabic term that describes the spectrum of relationships between intense listening, sprituality, and music-making itself.

The Duo was chosen in 2006 to provide the music score for the independent film "Birth of a Pillow" by director Sharmy Pandey, from Kolkata, India. The film is a 47 minute feature with no dialogue, requiring a continuous music score that would amplify and emotionally detail the story to a very high degree.



The Duo's current instrumentation is fretless electric guitar and drum set, though they still use the sarod/tabla combination that marked their earlier phase, as well as the underutlilzed oud/gome combination.

After a self-imposed exile in Clayton, New Mexico, Mustafa Stefan moved to Santa Fe in 2002, and then to Albuquerque in 2007, where he resides with his wife Micci, and their two children Francisco (13) and Sofia (10). His daughter Sofia shares his passionate hobby for Bollywood.

MORE...

salaams mustafa! where did you land? we miss you and hope that you & family are well. jeremy b. helped me produce a lovely cd for children (and big folks too) of american folk ballads. send us your address and we will send a copy for your family. you are in your prayers, and we hope that someday our paths will cross musically and otherwise. love from rabia and benyamin

Wa 'alaikum as-salam, Mustafa, and thank you so much for your e-mail.

The music I want to play is exclusively Turkish ilahis--the old familiar classics. I sent Richard an e-mail telling him that I was corresponding with you about this matter, so if you'd like to connect with him, he'll know exactly who you are.

In addition to enjoyment, his instruments are used for music therapy, and I have a hope that if the instrument I'm envisioning does come into being, it may be useful to people in the Middle East (or at least Turkey) for therapeutic purposes. At least two professors are currently doing research into the vast and well-known legacy of Turkish music for therapeutic purposes.

I'm extremely grateful for your help and hope that the resulting instrument will be something lovely. Your sister, Zeba

wa salaam Zeba,
Good to hear from you! hope all is well with you...
the scale Richard estimates will certainly work; however, there are ilahis in different scales, so you may want to consider having him make a second one with a different tuning - or else, just one instrument, but a completely chromatic one (that is, one that would have all the notes). The learning curve would be a little steeper, but would be more versatile in the end.
The other aspect to consider is that most eastern music will make use of quarter tones - i.e., notes pitched ' in between' the regular western pitches - so that could makes matters more complicated, depending if youre playing with other people. So one thing for me to know would be, are you listening to Turkish, Arabic Persian Ilahis? Qawwali stuff is different yet again.
Hope this isnt too daunting, but i think we want to strive for a balnce between making it easy for you and making it reasonably accurate.
Ill go visit Richard's site and see whats involved or adaptable, and let you know...
salaams, MSD

As-salamu 'alaikum, Mustafa,

This is from Zeba Siddiqui, a friend of Benyamin and Rabia van Hattum. My son Yusuf met you some time ago. I hope this finds you well and inspired with blessed music.

I am a lover of ilahis and am in need of playing an instrument. I've found an exciting thing called "the Wing," which is a sort of xylophone, made by Richard Cooke in southern Colorado. I've asked him if he could make me an instrument that's structured to play ilhai makams. However, I have absolutely no knowledge of music except my own ear, and Richare himself, although a builder of instruments and a musician, is quite unfamiliar with Eastern music, and hence is not sure what scale is needed. He says:

"I have listened to six ilahi recordings and the following scale seems appropriate: D D# F# G A A# C D."

So might I ask a huge favor of you if you have the time? It would be tremendously helpfu if you could contact Richard at freenotes.com, or myself at zebasid@hotmail.com, and let him or me know if this scale is correct, and if not, what the notes of this instrument should be.

I thank you very much for any help you may give me in this, and may Allah bless you. Your sister, Zeba Siddiqui

Amazing and beautiful music! Thanks.

wa salaaam,
theyre all combined into the 'blogroll' on the right hand side bar.... found this was an easier, me compact way to do it. If you mouse over those links before you click on them, the descriptions are there as well.
If I missed some, astagfirullah, let me know!

What happened to all the Islamic and Sufi links ?