Just finished a wonderful Norwegian mini-tour with “The Orient Express”, a new Ethno-Jazz project led by Syrian Kanun player and Singer Saleh Mahfood. It includes musicians from Syria, Iraq, Gaza, Israel, and Norway. We play arrangements for traditional middle-eastern arabic songs and also some originals. Was wonderful playing at the renowned Victoria Nasjonal Jazzscene in Oslo, and at Transform – Trondheim World Music Festival. During this tour we became good friends, laughing and discussing life and music as the cure for political conflicts. This band consists of some amazing musicians and I got to experiment for the first time with micro-tonal Arabic scales (Maqam) on the saxophone and EWI!