Faraj Suleiman

Faraj Suleiman

For a boy born in 1984 in a village on Palestinian territory, a career as an internationally successful pianist was not immediately obvious. Yet that is the story of Faraj Suleiman. From the boy who could not choose between football and piano lessons, he grew into the man who saw his greatest musical dream come true: performing at the Montreux Jazz Festival. That journey, and everything it cost him along the way, was the inspiration for his new album As Much As It Takes . An album with eleven works, each of which reports on a different chapter in Suleiman's life and career.

As Much As It Takes

Suleiman himself does not begin to describe what has influenced his music. It is too much, and it is all too interwoven in his work. If we do attempt it using Suleiman's biography, we come to the Arabic music of his youth, his classical education, his knowledge of jazz and his skills in improvisation. Shaped by all these sources of inspiration, Suleiman walks his own path between the East and the West. Between Haifa, where he lives, and Paris, where he recorded As Much As It Takes . An extremely personal album that expresses his joys, his sorrows and his anger. That is instrumental and narrative, personal and universal.