Daraj
Daraj is an intimate collaboration celebrating the rich tradition of Arabic music through the dialogue of qānūn and ʿūd. Rooted in the classical repertoire yet performed with spontaneity and warmth, the duo brings centuries-old melodies into close conversation with today's audiences.
Daraj is the Arabic word for stairs, and also for a musical scale. The duo began on the old stone staircases of Beirut, playing wherever there was a step to sit on, and the name holds on to both: the stairs they started on, and the steps of the maqām.
Whether in a concert hall, historic venue, courtyard or festival setting, the performance creates an atmosphere that is both deeply traditional and remarkably immediate, inviting audiences unfamiliar with Arabic music into its expressive world while offering listeners from the region a genuine sense of home.
Every performance begins quietly. A familiar melody unfolds slowly before opening into intricate improvisation, rhythmic dialogue and moments of shared spontaneity. Sets often follow the arc of a wasla, the classical suite that moves through a single maqām, letting each piece breathe while staying faithful to the traditions of maqām and ṭarab.
Repertoire
The programme is drawn from the heart of the classical Arabic ṭarab tradition: muwashahat, the qudud halabiya of Aleppo, and adwar, alongside the songs of Sayyed Darwish and instrumental forms from across the Levant, Egypt and the Ottoman world. A little Fairuz and Rahbani finds its way in too. Improvisation in maqām runs through every set, so no two performances are quite alike.
Designed for listening rather than spectacle, the duo adapts naturally to concert halls, museums, churches, galleries, festivals and intimate community spaces. Their performances are equally at home on a large stage or in close proximity to the audience, where every gesture and musical exchange becomes part of the experience.
A musical conversation from Beirut, carried wherever people gather to listen.
The artists
Camille El Feghali
QānūnCamille El Feghali is a qānūn player, composer and multi-instrumentalist, born in Beirut and based between Beirut and Melbourne. He plays qānūn, nāy, mizmār and būzuq alongside synthesiser and electronics, and much of his grounding in the tradition was learned by ear during his years archiving at the AMAR Foundation for Arab Music Archiving and Research in Beirut.
He founded and directs the classical ensemble Ṣaltanah and co-founded the ṭarab-electronic project Ṭarabeat, and also performs with Estudiantina of Melbourne and The Kismet Project. He was a featured performer on Christopher Tin's Grammy-nominated album Old World, received a Green Room Award for Zaffé, and has played WOMADelaide, Eurockéennes de Belfort and the Melbourne Recital Centre.
Oussama Abdel Fattah
ʿŪdOussama Abdel Fattah is a Lebanese ʿūd player from the Akkar region, raised in a household of a singer and a poet. He trained at the National Conservatory of Music in Tripoli under Khaled Najjar and studied music education at the Lebanese University, where the violinist and musicologist Nidaa Abou Mrad shaped his grounding in the classical Arabic tradition.
He has toured Europe with the French-Lebanese accordionist Sébastien Bertrand and performs in Omar Rajeh's dance work Baytna across France and Germany. Since 2012 he has helped archive thousands of historical recordings for the AMAR Foundation for Arab Music Archiving and Research. He teaches ʿūd and voice, and champions a traditional Arabic music that grows from within rather than borrowing from the West.