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[Be sure to enter the total dollar amount of purchased tickets, not the quantity;
for example, $40 will tell us you want two tix at Will Call.]

CAMEL JOCKIES & FLYING CARPETS Celebrates the Grand Opening
of the New Levantine Cultural Center Sept. 3 in Culver City!

with
Hicham Chami’s “MOSAIC TRIO”
+ comic AHMED AHMED
+ Arab/worldbeat electronica by NAKED RHYTHM

Camel Jockies & Flying Carpets features a reception at 7:30 pm, concert with Mosaic Trio at 8 pm, followed by comic Ahmed Ahmed and live music/dance with Naked Rhythm and bellydancers. Tickets are $20 advance purchase, $25 at the door. The evening includes several Middle East vendors, a book/music store and cash bar. Tix available online or via phone, 310.559.5544, or at the door. Net proceeds benefit Levantine Cultural Center's fall program series.

The new Levantine Cultural Center is located at 5920 Blackwelder Street, Culver City, CA 90232, one block south of Washington Blvd., and just west of La Cienega Blvd. Map

HICHAM CHAMI’S MOSAIC TRIO presents musicians from the Chicago Classical Oriental Ensemble, and performs traditional instrumental music from the Arabic, Sephardic, Egyptian, Levantine, Turkish, and Armenian repertoire. Mosaic Trio consists of Hicham Chami, Kim Sopata—an Evanston-based flutist and educator—and guest percussionist Faisal Zeidan. Hicham Chami is a Moroccan-born qanun performer based in Chicago. He has studied qanun for nearly twenty years, in Morocco and the U.S. Hicham is founder of the Mosaic Trio and the Chicago Classical Oriental Ensemble as well as Xauen Music, an organization dedicated to preserving the heritage of classical Arabic, Sephardic, Turkish, and Armenian music. He strives to communicate the beauty of traditional Oriental music to the American public through concerts, recordings, and publications. Visit Hicham's web site.

Richard Pryor said of comedian AHMED AHMED “he makes people confront their own racism and small minds—I see genius in this man.” Pryor chose Ahmed as the winner of the first Richard Pryor Award for Ethnic Comedy, and Ahmed is Levantine Cultural Center’s first Cultural Ambassador. Born in Helwan, Egypt in 1970, his parents emigrated to the U.S. when he was one month old. Ahmed grew up in Riverside and moved to Hollywood at age 19 to pursue a career as an actor and stand-up comedian. He has been in seen in such films and television shows as “Executive Decision,” “Swingers,” “Tracey Takes On,” “Roseanne,” “JAG,” “Tough Crowd” with Colin Quinn on Comedy Central and MTV's “PUNK'D.” A paid regular performer at The World Famous Comedy Store in Hollywood, Ahmed tours all across America and Europe. Visit Ahmed's web site.

NAKED RHYTHM is an exciting collaborative effort between producers/composers Avi Sills and Alex Spurkel advertising itself as “music without borders,” and with a vision of mixing ethnic/world grooves with electronica. By seamlessly fusing exotic world music elements with electronic dance beats, Naked Rhythm exposes Western listeners to the sounds of the Middle East, India, Africa, and South America. Naked Rhythm has performed for Sting, Stevie Wonder, Dianna Ross, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Downey Jr., The Black Eyed Peas and many others. Because Spurkel and Sills are both accomplished drummers there is a heavy emphasis on percussive rhythms. Naked Rhythm has just released 4 tracks on the latest compilation from Caravan Records entitled “Electric Oasis,” and is releasing their debut album in September 2005 entitled eponymously “Naked Rhythm.” Alex Spurkel is an electronic/world drummer for acclaimed pioneers Electric Skychurch. He studied ethnomusicology at UCLA. Avi Sills spent six years touring the world as the drummer for the Red Elvises. Visit the Naked Rhythm web site.

Founded in the summer of 2001 by four Americans of Middle Eastern heritage and with a prestigious national advisory board, Levantine Cultural Center has always been a nomadic center without a permanent home—with dozens of programs appearing across Southern California in venues as diverse as Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center, the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre or the Los Angeles Bahai Center. Now, on September 3, the Center will celebrate the acquisition of a new performance space, photography gallery and offices in Culver City, in an area burgeoning with art galleries and other creative businesses, near the intersection of La Cienega and Washington. What makes Levantine Cultural Center unique is its pan-cultural, inclusive approach, recognizing not only national cultures but important minority cultures within the Middle East, North African and Mediterranean mosaic. Additionally, many Levantine programs bring together both Arabs and Jews or other cultural groups with a history of conflict and a pressing need for reconciliation.

[Be sure to enter the total dollar amount of purchased tickets, not the quantity;
for example, $40 will tell us you want two tix at Will Call.]

***SAVE THE DATE • SEPT. 24, 2005 • Alchemy of Dreams, Levantine Festival 2 at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre, featuring Mystic Journey with Suzanne Teng/Gilbert Levy performing Middle Eastern/Indian sacred/mystical world music with guest artist Prince Diabaté and the Lexi Pearl MoMomentum Dancers + the Naser Musa-Adam del Monte Ensemble, new Arab-Flamenco fusion, with guest dancer Laila del Monte. Supported by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission Ford Summer Series, and the World Festival of Sacred Music 2005 ***

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