ناي البرغوثي Nai Barghouti

Two musical hearts beat in the chest of Palestinian singer Nai Barghouti: one for the Arabic music of her homeland and one for jazz – her music is a unique combination of both genres. Not least because Barghouti has developed her own singing technique for this symbiosis, which her fans affectionately call »Naistrumentation«. Barghouti uses her voice as an instrument, very similar to »scat singing« in jazz, which instead of words improvises individual syllables into virtuoso melodies. Together with her band, a quartet comprising the Arabian box zither qanun, drums, bass guitar and piano, she transfers the jazzy influences very organically to the Arabian repertoire of her homeland. Nai Barghouti grew up in Palestinian Ramallah. At aged 14, she started studying singing and flute at the Edward Said National Conservatory in Jerusalem. In 2013, she went to the USA, where she discovered her passion for jazz, which she was to take to Amsterdam two years later. There, she studied jazz singing at the Amsterdam Conservatoire. Her exceptional talent and musical sense did not stay undetected for long: in 2019, she was a finalist in the Aga Khan Music Awards in Lisbon and, in 2020, Barghouti won the Concertgebouw Young Talent Award, which opened doors for her in Europe too.