Tag: Sean Shibe

Broken Branches, Sean Shibe, Karim Sulayman, Wigmore Hall, 14 July 2026

We both thoroughly enjoyed this concert, despite it coming at the end of a remarkably busy day looking at paint, shelving, cricket and tennis.

I had a slight sense of foreboding, recalling that our previous sighting of Sean Shibe at the Wig was in similarly tired circumstances, with some ear-drum splitting electric guitar thrown in to ensure we stayed wide awake.

softLOUD, Sean Shibe, Wigmore Hall, 28 June 2019

This concert, with Karim Sulayman, was a far more relaxed and relaxing affair. We heard:

  • Henry Purcell – Music for a while from Incidental music for Oedipus, King of Thebes Z583
  • John Dowland – • Preludium • Fantasia No. 7 • Time stands still  
  • Giulio Caccini – Dalla porta d’oriente (you might choose to enjoy this personal favourite on YouTube music)
  • Claudio Monteverdi – • Sì dolce è’l tormento SV332 • La mia turca che d’amor
  • Trad/Sephardic – La Prima Vez arranged by Karim Sulayman & Sean Shibe
  • Trad/Andalusian – Lamma Bada Yatathanna arranged by Karim Sulayman & Sean Shibe
  • Sayed Darwish – El Helwa Di arranged by Karim Sulayman & Sean Shibe
  • Ziad Rahbani – Li Beirut based on Joaquín Rodrigo arranged by Karim & Fairuz Sulayman & Sean Shibe
  • Jonathan Harvey – Sufi Dance
  • Layale Chaker – A butterfly in New York
  • Tōru Takemitsu – I. Wainscot Pond (after a painting by Cornelia Foss) from In the Woods
  • Benjamin Britten – Songs from the Chinese Op. 58 • The Big Chariot • The Old Lute • The Autumn Wind • The Herd-Boy • Depression • Dance Songs
  • Encore: Tomás Méndez – Cucurrucucú paloma

We were fully engaged from the Purcell through to and including the enchanting Li Beirut arrangement.

The more modern music, as is often the case, was a struggle for us. I never have “got” those Britten songs and I’m sure now I never will.

Still, the concert was a triumph. Janie especially liked the baroque pieces -not least the Italian songs, and the encore. Which is is just as well because we shall be returning to the Wig three days later (today, as I write) for some more of that sort of thing. Indeed I have only just (subsequent to booking) realised that Karim Sulayman is part of the ensemble that we’ll be hearing.

If you are keen to hear pretty much the whole Broken Branches thing, here is a stream from 2024, when the pair performed the same concert in Philadelphia:

softLOUD, Sean Shibe, Wigmore Hall, 28 June 2019

Russ London — (Russ London) [CC BY-SA 2.5 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], from Wikimedia Commons

This was the only one of the Wigmore Hall Lates concerts I booked this year and I don’t think Janie is now overly enthusiastic about me booking even one a year unless it is a “must see”.

It’s the Friday evening tiredness that gets Janie – especially after eating.

Perhaps I should have been wary of the lower case/UPPER CASE signal in the title of the concert.

Sean Shibe tries to show us the contrast and yet similarities between some beautiful, gentle 17th Century music from the Straloch and Rowallan Manuscripts and some modern electric guitar music of the most frenzied kind.

Here is a link to the Wigmore Hall resource that explains the concert.

Here he is playing some of his gentle stuff – I believe the sample below is Dowland:

Although I much preferred Shibe’s acoustic guitar to his electric guitar work, I did really like one electric guitar piece: the Steve Reich Electric Counterpoint. Here is Steve Reich and Pat Metheney’s version of it:

I cannot find any YouTubes of Sean Shibe’s more ear-drum-splitting electric guitar music, with which he concluded the concert. You have been spared, dear reader. It ensured that Janie and I were wide awake for the journey home. Perhaps not in the very best of moods; but awake.

Perhaps we’re getting too old for this sort of caper.