The Tunisian singer and musicologist Dorsaf Hamdani, who has been living in Paris since 1998, had already honored three special female singers on her previous album Princesses du Chant Arabe: Om Kalsoum, Fairouz and Asmahan. In her next project she combined two icons from two musical worlds: the Lebanese singer Fairuz and the French chansonnière Barbara. Together with accordionist Daniel Mille,
… she chose six songs from each singer, which would go well together. Complemented by Lucien Zerrad (guitar, ud), Mohamed Lassoued (violin, ud) and Lotfi Soua (percussion), Hamdani created an intimate setting, as if Barbara and Fairuz were meeting in a small bar on a winter afternoon. Hamdani and her accompanists tried not to cover the songs imitatively, but to make them their own and interpret them as new. Hamdani's sensual and dark-hued vocals and the tranquil accompaniment transport the listener into a world full of nostalgia and melancholy. (SvdP)more