“I am deeply taken with traditional music, it moves me, it connects you to emotion.”

~ Armand Amar (b. 1953), French composer

Music is integral to my life, especially traditional music that sounds as though the soul is crying out for something precious, universal, or eternal. The music of Armand Amar, an award-winning French composer who grew up in Morocco, resonate these qualities.

I share two of his works in this post, both of which have deeply moved me in inexplicable ways. The first melody is the theme song for HUMAN: The Movie (2015), directed by Yann Arthus-Bertrand (b. 1946), a French environmentalist, activist, journalist and photographer, The second piece is the soundtrack for the 2005 film Bab’aziz by Tunisian writer and director Nacer Khemir, and is performed with the duduk, an ancient Armenian wind instrument by the French-Armenian duduk artist, Levon Minassian.

Theme song for HUMAN: The Movie

Soundtrack for Bab’aziz (composer: Armand Amar)