The Sumer Group

Talal Ismail , Group Leader 

 As an orchestra, Sumer was established in Gothenburg, Sweden on the first of September 1996, with a purpose, a goal and a dream. The purpose is to introduce Arabic traditional and folk music to Scandinavia in particular, and the west in general. The goal is to establish the first school for Arabic music in Sweden, and the dream is to make a tour of the Arab World, Europe and America performing Arabic music as it ought to sound.

 Sumer's repertoire consists primarily of Arabic traditional and folk music with emphasis on twentieth-century compositions. The songs are carefully hand-picked to span more than twenty Arab countries. Sumer embraces those very special and local singing genres such as muwashahat of Andalusia, Egyptian mawwal, Iraqi maqam, pasta, boudhiyya, ataba, swehli, and niel, mountain singing from Lebanon, Gulf, Nubian and Bedouin singing, malouf of Tunisia and North Africa, Egyptian adwar, qudoud of Aleppo, and much more!

What makes Sumer special and unique, probably in the whole world, is that the lead singing is performed by Swedish and Norwegian girls. Not only that, but they perform all the Arab music styles regardless of the huge variety of styles throughout more than twenty Arab countries. Their performance is characterized by a high grade of precision and mastering of the tiniest linguistic and musical nuances and intricacies. After every gig, the Arabs among the audience usually come and talk to them in Arabic, which they cannot speak.