Abdullah Miniawy is an Egyptian poet, expressionist, vocalist and composer based in Paris, working across experimental music, performance and political writing. He has collaborated widely across contemporary jazz, electronics and improvised music, and has appeared at major festivals and institutions across Europe, including the Festival d’Avignon, Philharmonie de Paris and the Venice Biennial.

At Cafe OTO, Miniawy performs with his trio featuring Robinson Khoury and Jules Boittin. His recent work centres on a distinctive “three-tenor” setup, with voice and trombones locked in close, volatile conversation. The trio explores Egyptian vocal traditions within a contemporary framework, moving between baroque counterpoint, extended brass technique, and a charged, declamatory vocal approach that often draws on Classical Arabic poetry and the intensity of recital.

Drawing on PEACOCK DREAMS (released May 2025), Miniawy delivers poems largely in classical Arabic, chanted with the intensity of Qur’anic recitation and Sufi prayer, while Khoury and Boittin shape the air around him with charged, eloquent brass phrases and spare, uneasy harmonies into something urgent and contemporary.

The result is devotional and contemporary at once, weaving baroque, operatic and Sufi motifs with the urban, mystic echoes of Cairo. PEACOCK DREAMS has been widely hailed as a standout release of 2025, praised as one of the strongest contemporary avant-garde suites in recent years.