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ZADE – One Night in Jordan: A Concert for Peace Epic Music Event featuring Musicians from Around the World Performing in The Name of Peace at Historic Roman Amphitheatre to air on PBS in 2010.

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ZADE – One Night in Jordan: A Concert for Peace Epic Music Event featuring Musicians from Around the World Performing in The Name of Peace at Historic Roman Amphitheatre to air on PBS in 2010.

Concert CD from ZD Records, Distributed by EMI,

to be released in the US on February 9th, 2010, followed by the DVD release.

LOS ANGELES – Named by the Washington Post as a “gorgeous pianist/composer/hunk,” and recognized by The Washington Times as “Jordan’s leading Cultural Ambassador (who) dedicates his music to building bridges of peace and tolerance,” the young Jordanian composer and pianist ZADE makes his television performance debut joined by one hundred musicians from 40 nations to present “a message of peace to the world” in ZADE – One Night In Jordan: A Concert for Peace airing as a PBS special in 2010. The CD and the DVD of the concert will be released in the US on February 9th, 2010.

The composer’s epic cinematic music blending East and West draws inspiration from the anthems of the great film composers, his homeland’s natural beauty and the efforts of His Majesty the late King Hussein of Jordan to make peace in the Middle East. Recently, ZADE and some of the world’s finest musicians – including London’s renowned Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Voices Choir, virtuoso violinists Karen Briggs (Soul II Soul, Wynton Marsalis) and Grammy winner Charlie Bisharat (Elton John, Black-Eyed Peas), Ramon Stagnaro on Spanish guitar (Josh Groban, Shakira) and world music woodwind maestro Pedro Eustache (Paul McCartney and Don Henley) traveled to Jordan to present an uplifting and majestic musical journey of ZADE’S compositions at one of the world’s largest remaining Roman Amphitheatres in the world, built nearly 2,000 years ago.

This monumental concert television event was filmed in HD, under the patronage of Her Royal Highness Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein and dedicated in loving memory of His Majesty the late King Hussein of Jordan. It was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, ever concert staged in Jordan.

Following the live concert, ZADE was flooded with emails from Jordanian fans urging him to “tell the world that we want peace,” while thanking him for “giving us back the hope we have sometimes lost.”

While The Los Angeles Times noted that for ZADE, “making music and advocating world peace go hand in hand,” People Magazine lauded ZADE as a piano prodigy. No stranger to U.S. audiences, ZADE’s previous albums have spent months on the U.S. Billboard charts – beginning in 2003 with his self-titled debut – and his wild popularity in Jordan helped his albums reach No. 1 on the Jordanian Album Charts.

Music featured on ZADE – One Night in Jordan: A Concert For Peace includes original compositions that ZADE composed and produced ranging from his signature epic “Kingdom of Peace,” to the Latin inspired “Tango,” the energetic “Amman,” and the reflective “Santiago’s Dream,” inspired by the book “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho.

America’s love affair with ZADE began in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Feeling that “terrorists have hijacked my religion,” ZADE began a humble grassroots effort to create a better understanding of his culture in the West by performing house concerts across America. Playing in people’s living rooms, churches, temples, schools, and hospitals, he toured non-stop from 2001 till 2005, performing an average of 200 nights a year and earning praise for his efforts to combat world polarization. These earnest community concerts for peace catapulted the artist onto the world stage, ZADE has performed before Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, First Lady Laura Bush, and their Majesties Jordan’s King Abdullah and Queen Rania.

In 2005, ZADE established the ZADE Foundation for International Peace and Understanding, a U.S. non-profit organization helping musicians expand their role to become proactive peace builders and future community leaders. Under the patronage of Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan, and with support from Berklee College of Music and Seeds of Peace, ZADE toured with musicians from around the world. Not only did the concerts feature artists from war-torn regions working together through music, but each stop of the tour included different cultural workshops in which band members were able to talk about their experiences growing up in their respective countries. The performances and workshops had a positive affect: a performance at a Washington, DC area synagogue prompted a new dialogue between the Muslim and Jewish communities in the area, the tour helped launch The Boniuk Center for Religious Tolerance at Rice University, as well as the creation of The Peace Song Initiative in Detroit, MI.

ZADE studied Western and Middle Eastern music composition and piano

performance at Noor Al Hussein’s National Music Conservatory in Amman, Jordan and later continued his studies at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.

ZADE – One Night in Jordan: A Concert for Peace features band members including John Robinson (Drums), Walter Rodriguez (Latin Percussion), Frank Crawford (Keyboards), Michael Thompson (Electric Guitar), John Peña (Bass Guitar), Gary Innes (Accordion), Lilit Khojayan (Qanoon), and Nasser Salameh (Middle Eastern percussion).

Executive Producers are Danny O’Donovan and Gustavo Sagastume; Producer: Danny O’Donovan; Associate Producer: Betsey Kamel; Director: Steve Purcell. A presentation of WLIW21 in association with WNET.ORG.

Zade One Night In Jordan: A Concert For Peace PBS Broadcast:
2/25 NJN (New Jersey) 8pm est

2/27 CPTV (Connecticut) 8pm est

Look out for more airings across the US in March/April.