Info:
Duration: 58’ 30”
Narrated by Christopher Nupen
Year of production: 2008
Awards:
Special Jury Award, Sole e Luna Film Festival, Palermo, 2008
World Documentary Bronze Medal, New York Film and Television Festival, 2009
A film which traces the development of an exceptional musical talent from childhood to the early days of maturity.
This is another in our series with young artists not yet known to the general public, at the time of filming but destined to become known world-wide in time (the others include Jacqueline du Pré, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Daniel Barenboim, Pinchas Zukerman and Itzhak Perlman). This is a genre which has proved to be one of the most successful in attracting public interest to music through the appeal of youthful talent.
Karim Said was born in Amman in 1988 where he studied percussion with his father and the piano with Agnes Victorovna Bashir (alumna of the Gnessin School, Moscow). He has been applauded by established musicians and juries in several countries and when this film was released, he had already won nine international prizes, still only twenty three years old.
Karim Said's distinguishing characteristics are his naturalness, both in his music and in his personality, his humour, his intelligence and a total lack of pretence but, above and beyond these things, it is the way in which his music gets through to his audiences and touches people, that sets him apart. Karim's musical journey began at the young age of five, when he discovered his love for the piano and classical music. He has a distinct ability to communicate and connect with audiences through music; a "born communicator" as described by the Independent newspaper.
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At the recommendation of his mentor Daniel Barenboim, Karim studied for seven years at the Purcell School in the United Kingdom – one of the world’s leading specialist schools for gifted young musicians – before his post-graduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He was much appreciated by his teachers and fellow students, as much at home in his conducting class as he is at the piano and as much at home in jazz as he is in classical music. Our film shows him in many live music situations, both classical and jazz and always with lively results.
In 2001 we went with Karim to Lithuania when he competed in the international piano competition Gradus ad Parnassum and won both the second prize and, (significantly, since the audience consisted entirely of musicians), the Special Audience Prize.
We went next to Amman where he played a public recital under the auspices of the Goethe Institute: another landmark in his career. We filmed the recital and filmed him with his family in what were effectively the last days of his childhood.
In 2002 we filmed his first appearance as soloist/conductor in a concert performance of Beethoven's first piano concerto with the Purcell School Orchestra, directing from the keyboard. He was aged 13.
His next achievement was the formation of his own volunteer orchestra within the Purcell School with which he gave a public concert in May 2003, to raise money for the school library. He conducted Beethoven's seventh Symphony, entirely from memory, and we filmed the final rehearsals and the concert with multi camera setups. Both the music and the images are compelling and the interviews with his peers in the orchestra are as heartwarming as they are revealing. He was immensely liked and admired by his fellow students. At 14 he was younger than all of his orchestral players. The sense of progress is striking and is an important ingredient in the film. It can be seen in almost everything that we have shot.
Karim won a Purcell School composition competition and had his composition performed at the annual Purcell School concert at the Royal Academy of Music in London, the most important concert of the school year. The film contains excerpts from the concert and some revealing interviews with the Head of Composition, the conductor and with Karim himself.
Since then Karim has won two more prizes (including, once again, the Special Audience Prize) at the International Franz Liszt Competition in Weimar, which led to an invitation to play both a piano recital and Beethoven’s Second Piano concerto. Again, we filmed both the rehearsals and the concerts with multi-camera set-ups and again the results are both impressive and touching.
Amidst the challenges posed by the global pandemic, Karim seized the opportunity to give back to his native community, and established the Amman Chamber Orchestra as its founding principal conductor and accepted the post of director of music at the new Amman Institute of Performing Arts in Jordan, both initiatives of the Bank al Etihad Foundation. As Director of Music at the foundation, Karim focuses his efforts on establishing a regional hub for musical education and world-class performances that embrace both Western and Middle Eastern classical music in an increasingly thriving environment in Jordan.
Karim has been an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (London) since 2017.
Karim Said is a lively fellow with a very endearing gift. It is a gift that shines through his music rather than through show. He is a true musician similar in some ways to Edwin Fischer or to Karim’s mentor, Daniel Barenboim.
The film has been shown on television by the BBC and in Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Australia, and in the Barbican Centre in London.
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