The Epic of Thebes

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The Epic of Thebes (Story of Passion and War)

I am delighted to announce a brand new collaboration with the Egyptian film score composer, Remon Sakr!

For my collaboration in this project, I provided an ancient Egyptian-themed improvisation for lyre, which Sakr orchestrated for two of the tracks on his debut album, "The Epic of Thebes (Story of Passion & War)" - an epic musical journey into the era of Pharaoh Ahmose I and his struggle against the Hyksos...

For track 5, "The Holy Nile (Hymn to Hapi)", the melodic theme I arranged for lyre is skilfully orchestrated with a rich texture of strings and delicately punctuated by harp chords, set against evocative natural sounds of gently lapping waters and birdsong.

For track 7, "Salvations Hymn for Amun (In the North Temple of Amun)", Sakr orchestrated my lyre theme with the exotic, ancient timbres of Egyptian ney flute set against a background of hypnotic Egyptian rhythms, to set the 'ancient Egyptian feel', leading up to the ending section of the track; featuring haunting, sacred-sounding vocals, to conjure up stunning mental imagery of the sort of long-forgotten, ancient sacred rites which may once have been performed in the Temple of Amun.

Here is Sakr's official 'promo' video for the album, in which brief clips of my lyre improvisation can be heard at 0:52 and 1:37 minutes into the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0lZWcYg6iQ 

Here is my own rough 'live' performance of the improvisation I created for the album (attempting to evoke some of Sakr's amazing ancient Egyptian-themed orchestral textures for the tracks, with my Boss RC-1 Loop Pedal!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpRsDkVUliI 

As a special bonus, for all you lovely lyre fans, here is a sneak preview of two as yet unpublished videos, featuring extended length clips of the actual tracks which feature the lyre theme I created for this album:

The Holy Nile (Hymn to Hapi):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC-KD0RbWCA

Salvations Hymn for Amun (In the North Temple of Amun):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxZ77bSgZ-A

The album is out now, on all major digital music stores, including iTunes, Amazon, Google Play and Spotify - all details of where to purchase the album can now be found on Sakr's official Facebook Page.

Such a unique privilege to have had this opportunity of collaborating in such an epic, ancient Egyptian-themed musical production!