Tiesto, San Der Van Doorn and Nadia Ali live in Beirut

Part of the Crystal Summer Festival, Tiesto, San Der Van Doorn and Nadia Ali will be performing live in Lebanon @ La Marina JK (Dbayeh)

Tiesto Biography:

If it’s Wednesday it must be Latvia. Tonight Tiësto plays to 15,000 dance enthusiasts and music fans in the Baltic State. Already this week the legendary Dutch DJ has wowed the Balearic masses at his summer-long Monday residency at Privilege. Tomorrow he’s off to Italy. The day after, Greece.

This is very much business as usual for Tiësto, the ultra-busy DJ who turned the playing of trance music into an artform and whose achievements are unsurpassed.

Inspired by the likes of U2, he invested heavily in the live aspect of his sets, employing his own sound, light and visual crews, creating arena-friendly dance music spectaculars. In 1997 he formed his own label, Black Hole Recordings, to release both the records he made himself and ones made by likeminded electronica visionaries. He has been nominated for a Grammy, had worldwide hit singles (his remix of Delerium’s Silence featuring Sarah McLachlan; Dance4Life featuring Faithless’s Maxi Jazz), performed at the opening ceremony of the Athens Olympics with music he composed especially for the occasion, wowed the rock festival crowds at Coachella, and remixed the likes of The Killers, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Bloc Party. He is, in short, the biggest DJ in the world.

‘Because people care,’ is Tiësto’s response when asked to account for his huge success, ‘and they see that I care. I’m very honest in what I do. It’s not an act or a gimmick. It’s pure, it’s emotion.’

When you see me DJ you know I feel it and I love what I do. The real thing. When you see me play you know you are seeing someone who plays not because he has to but because he loves it. For this champion of the people, it’s not just about his undeniable ability to create a party in any venue, large or small, in any place in the world, but also about how the music moves people. Makes them feel something. People write letters saying, ‘I was going through a bad period but your music and your show made me feel good.’

But 2009 is also very much about business as usual for Tiësto. After a run of four top-selling electronic artist albums, the electronic pioneer has made Kaleidoscope, an artist album in the truest sense: a stunning collection of songs written and recorded in collaboration with a variety of music talents from the worlds of dance, pop and rock: Jónsi Birgisson from Sigur Rós, Kele Okereke from Bloc Party, Nelly Furtado, Calvin Harris, Emily Haines from Metric, to name a few. Having made the DJ performance an artform, Tiësto has now made the dance album an artform.

‘The starting point was to work with different artists that I liked,’ Tiësto explains, ‘it was as simple as that. ‘Sigur Rós make beautiful music. Bloc Party are fantastic and exciting and innovative. But the hardest thing initially was to get those kind of people to collaborate. They don’t work with dance artists as a rule, and especially not a dance DJ, but when we started producing these tracks, I was surprised at how well the styles work together.’

Once the artists had seen YouTube clips of Tiësto’s crowd-wowing performances, like the one of him playing in front of 250.000 people on the beach in Brazil, and once they’d heard the tracks he’d been writing, they all jumped at the chance.

First on board were Tegan and Sara, the Canadian indie duo and twin sisters. Tiësto had remixed their single ‘Back In Your Head’, and in June 2008 they met in Vancouver. ‘I realised what great songwriters they are – I gave them a track to write on and they did an amazing job.’ In his home studio in his hometown of Breda in Holland, Tiësto set to work finessing the collaboration. ‘Feel It In My Bones’ is the result, an epic, shimmering floorfiller.

Soon the songs were pouring in. Nelly Furtado and Tiësto started off as mutual admirers, but after making her way to Tiësto’s performance at the 2008 Miami Winter Music Conference (she’d come along with her producer Timbaland) Furtado instantly agreed to be involved, and a few weeks later she gave Tiësto an idea for a song that would become, ‘Who Wants To Be Alone’. Next to sign up was Emily Haines of Metric. She caught the thrilling Tiësto DJ Experience in Ibiza last summer and again, didn’t hesitate – ‘Knock You Out’ is a euphoric tune that will cause floorquakes in the Balearic isles and rock festivals alike.

Securing the involvement of Kele Okereke, singer with Bloc Party, was initially more of a challenge. ‘Kele’s voice is so powerful on a dance track – I did a remix for Bloc Party, of the band´s new single ‘One More Chance’, and it really worked. Kele was a hard man to pin down. I was supposed to sit in the studio with him in Miami during this year’s WMC, but he got sick and had to cancel last minute. But I had written this weird piano track, an offbeat thing, and he really liked it, so we hooked up in London one Sunday afternoon a few weeks later. I played him the song and he just started singing with his guitar, mumbling a little bit then suddenly words came out of his mouth… and suddenly we had a track! It was amazing to see how this guy made something cool and creative right on the spot.’

The album’s lead single, meanwhile, is ‘I Will Be Here’, a hook-up with huge-selling Australian band Sneaky Sound System. It’s a big, bold party tune with a stirring house-diva vocal – and a song whose infectious immediacy reflects the instinctive manner in which Tiësto wrote it: he crafted the entire production in less than week.

Creating Kaleidoscope, the song that gives this colorful, shapeshifting album its entirely appropriate title, was more drawn-out. Tiësto had his heart, and his ears, set on securing the services of Sigur Rós singer Jónsi Birgisson. Tiësto flew to Chicago to track him down, then did the same in Brussels, before finally spending time in Amsterdam discussing what they might do together.

‘It was a crazy idea,’ he laughs. ‘If you listen to Sigur Rós you can’t imagine any relation to Tiësto. Maybe the melancholy of it, but that’s about it. Their music is so different and I think that Jónsi is one of the most creative artists in the world. But the funny thing was, I met him at a couple of times at shows, and there’s a lot more in common than I thought – Jónsi told me he used to be a big Iron Maiden fan as well, like I was! Then I noticed that he makes a lot of dance music at home on his own. So he’s not that far away from what I do, really.’

The result is a huge, progressive trance song, soulful and uplifting. ‘And Kaleidoscope is a great title for the album too. We’re mixing shapes and colors together to make something new.’

Say hello to a new Tiësto. Yes, he’s the world’s most popular DJ. But the ceaseless desire to innovate that has pushed Tiësto to the top of his game, propelled him to seek out some of the best musicians around, wherever in the world they – or he – happened to be. ‘I’ve worked with these handpicked artists because they´re people I admire hugely, and because they make my music better. It’s more fulfilling for me to work like this, but a lot harder and more challenging.’

In the end, admits Tiësto, he’s unsure how people will react to Kaleidoscope. ‘It is completely different to what I did before,’ he says cheerfully, adding that this is one of the reasons he´s set up an appropriately named new label, Musical Freedom, to release the album. ‘I’m introducing more and more flavors of what people know as Tiësto. This is a record you can enjoy at home, not just on the dancefloor. But what is very important to me, is that every single track on the album will work when I play out too.’

He’s not the world’s greatest DJ for nothing…

Awards Overview
Awards 2008

* IDMA Award Best Global DJ / Best Electronic Dance Album – Elements Of Life

Awards 2007

* Grammy Nomination Best Electronic Dance Album – Elements Of Life

Awards 2005

* 3 FM Award Best Dance Artist
* Release Dance Award Best Trance/Progressive artist
* Release Dance Award Best International DJ
* TMF Belgium Best International DJ
* Dance Music Award Germany Best Trance Artist
* WMC Awards Miami Best Producer
* WMC Awards Miami Best Hi-NRG / Euro track
* WMC Awards Miami The Ortofon Best European DJ 2004
* WMC Awards Miami Best Producer 2004
* TMF Award Holland Best Dance National
* TMF Award Holland Radio 538 single of the year
* TMF Award Holland Lifetime Achievement
* Edison Music Award Best dance album – Just Be

Awards 2004

* ID&T Dutch DJ Award Best Dutch DJ by audience
* Buma/Stemra Sound of Silence Award
* TMF Award Belgium Best International DJ
* World Music Award World’s best selling Dutch artist
* Ibiza DJ Award Best International DJ Trance
* TMF Award Holland Best National DJ
* TMF Award Holland Best Dance Act National
* DJ Mag Top 100 Number 1 Position
* WMC Awards Miami Best International DJ

Awards 2003

* World Dancestar Award U.S.A. Best International DJ
* ID&T Dutch DJ Award Best Dutch DJ by professional jury
* ID&T Dutch DJ Award Best Dutch DJ by audience
* Radio 538 Dance Award Radio 538 Dutch Audience Edison
* TMF Award Holland Best Dance Act National
* TMF Award Holland Best National DJ
* TMF Award Belgium Best Dance International
* MTV Europe Music Award Best Dutch Act
* BG Magazine Award Best Club/Trance/Hardhouse DJ
* DJ Mag Top 100 Number 1 Position
* Mixmag Award Best Resident Ibiza

Sander Van Doorn Biography:

Sander van Doorn (born Sander Ketelaars on February 28, 1979 in Eindhoven, Noord-Brabant, Netherlands) is a Dutch techno/trance music DJ and producer. He is listed at DJMag’s top 100 djs list, debuting at #13 in 2008, and is currently listed at #10 in the world. Sander hosts an internet radio show every 2nd and 4th Wednesday of the month (1:30 pm – 3:00 pm US Eastern Time) on Digitally Imported called Identity. The show is made from 2 studio mixes and sometimes is live.

The first big achievement in his career was securing residencies at Judgement Sunday in Ibiza and at the Gallery in London. Sander has DJ’ed at many major clubs, parties and venues around the world. In June 2007 he presented one of Eddie Halliwell’s shows on BBC Radio One. He also did an essential mix for BBC Radio One in June 2006, the same month he won ‘Best New Producer’ at the Trance Awards. His productions, both original work and remixes, in 2007-2008 have generally been well received in the electronic music industry. Notable artists he has done remixes for include Robbie Rivera, Matt Darey, Randy Katana, Mode Hookers (Steve Angello & Sebastian Ingrosso), Blank & Jones, TDR, Armin van Buuren.

On 3 March 2008 Sander released his first artist album under the record label Spinnin’. The album was titled ‘Supernaturalistic’. It is a 13 track album with a variation of tracks with a base in trance but all with their own take on the genre.

March 2008 saw Sander win an award for ‘Best Breakthrough DJ’ in the International Dance Music Awards at the Miami Winter Music Conference in 2008 (beating the likes of Calvin Harris, Deadmau5 and Axwell).

Albums
2008 Supernaturalistic (DOORN)
DJ Mixes
2006 Dance Valley Festival 2006
2006 I-D Digital Mix
2007 Fast And Furious
[edit]Singles & EPs
2004 Twister (RR, as Sam Sharp)
2004 Loaded (Oxygen)
2004 Punk’d (Oxygen)
2004 Dark Roast (Oxygen)
2004 Deep / In-Deep (Reset, as Sam Sharp)
2004 Theme Song (Liquid, as Sandler)
2005 Chemistry EP (Liquid, as Sandler)
2005 Bling Bling (Oxygen)
2005 ERROR (Reset, as Sam Sharp)
2005 Adrenaline / Push Off Me (Oxygen, as Purple Haze)
2005 A.K.A (Oxygen)
2005 S.O.S. (Message In A Bottle) (Whitelabel, as Filterfunk)
2005 Hoover:Craft (Reset, as Sam Sharp)
2006 Eden / Rush (Oxygen, as Purple Haze)
2006 Pumpkin (Oxygen)
2007 Grasshopper/ Grass-Hopper (Oxygen)
2007 By Any Demand feat MC Pryme (Spinnin)
2007 King of My Castle (Sander van Doorn Remix)(Spinnin)
2007 Riff (DOORN)
2008 The Bass (Nebula/EMI)
2008 Sia – The Girl You Lost To Cocaine (Sander van Doorn Edit)
2008 Apple
2008 Sushi
2008 Organic (with Marco V)
2009 Close My Eyes (with Robbie Williams and Pet Shop Boys) (Nebula)
2009 Roundabout (as Sam Sharp)
2009 What Say (with Marco V)
2009 Bliksem (DOORN, as Purple Haze)
2009 Bastillion
2009 Ninety (DOORN)
2010 Renegade
2010 Daisy
2010 Reach Out

Remixes
2004 Code 1 – House Music (SvD Dub)
2004 Sander van Doorn – Dark Roast (S.V.D. Remix)
2005 Manny Romero – Compadre (S.v.D. Remix)
2005 TDR – Squelch (Sander Van Doorn Remix)
2005 FilterFunk – S.O.S. (Message In A Bottle) (Sander van Doorn Remix)
2006 Armin van Buuren – Control Freak (Sander van Doorn Remix)
2006 Mohamed Sehly – Amazing Beat (SVD Without Going Cairo Remix)
2006 Tiësto – Dance4Life (Sander Van Doorn Remix)
2006 Club Scene Investigators – Direct Dizko (Sander Van Doorn Remix)
2006 Technotronic – Pump Up The Jam (Sander Van Doorn Remix)
2006 Sander van Doorn – Pumpkin (SvD Remix)
2006 Mode Hookers – Breathe (Sander van Doorn Remix)
2006 Yello – Oh Yeah (Sander van Doorn Remix)
2006 Filterfunk – S.O.S. (Message In A Bottle) [Sander van Doorn Mix]
2007 Wamdue Project – King Of My Castle (Sander van Doorn Vocal Mix)
2007 Gleave – Come With Me (SVD Stripped Edit)
2007 Arctic Monkeys – When The Sun Goes Down (Sander van Doorn Remix)
2008 Sia – The Girl You Lost To Cocaine (Sander van Doorn Remix)
2008 One Republic – Apologize (Sander van Doorn Bootleg)
2009 Sam Sharp – Roundabout (Sander van Doorn Main Mix)
2009 The Killers – Spaceman (Sander van Doorn Remix) Part 1
2009 The Killers – Spaceman (Sander van Doorn Remix) Part 2
2009 Depeche Mode – Peace (Sander van Doorn Remix)

Nadia Ali Biography:

Nadia Ali
As with any great era of music, there are always a handful of tracks that can be considered genre defining. For dance music -from the late 90’s to the new millennium – there were only a select few tracks that caught fire around the world. Most of these tracks came from the godfather’s of the recent dance music explosion: We’re talking about tracks like Underworld’s “Born Slippy,” and The Chemical Brother’s “Block Rockin’ Beats.”

However, there was one track in particular that emerged from the underground and caught everyone off guard. At first, people knew iiO’s “Rapture” by the catchy “la, la, la” chorus as sung by a beautiful voice. As the track emerged from the underground and blew up in the mainstream, “Rapture” became a true tour de force. Remixes from Creamer & K, Deep Dish and Armin van Buuren would follow and the track sold into the millions. Still, at the heart of what made “Rapture” so beautiful was that voice. That voice – and voice of a new generation in house music – belongs to Nadia Ali. Nadia Ali was born in the Mediterranean and grew up in Queens, New York City. In her teens, Nadia listened to a huge variety of music – anything from Reggae, Hip Hop, Latin house and from Motown to alternative rock. However, Nadia considers classic rock and Indian music to be her biggest genre influences. Artistically, the three performers having the most influence on her are Stevie Nicks, “because of her haunting vocals and songwriting;” Sade, “because she has such a distinctive sound;” and Madonna, “For being such an intense performer.” She has also been heavily influenced by artists ranging from U2, Led Zeppelin, Jim Morrison, Carole King, Depeche Mode and eastern icon, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, among others.

Nadia’s voice is astonishingly pure and rich despite the fact that she never once had vocal training. Earlier in her life she looked at singing as a hobby (she wrote her first song at 16) and instead went to college for academic purposes rather than pursue a career in music. But life sometimes has other ideas for us. While working in the NYC Versace office – trying to balance full time employment with college – a colleague (who had heard her singing in the office) introduced Nadia to a producer named Markus Moser. The first song Nadia sang for Markus was Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” and it blew him away – He knew Nadia had something special. At Markus’ suggestion Nadia soon quit college to focus exclusively on singing and songwriting, a period that soon yielded dozens of songs.

One such track was the mighty “Rapture,” a song in which the lyrics were written by Nadia in a mere 30 minutes. Together, Markus and Nadia would formally release “Rapture,” a second single “At The End” and the album Poetica under the stage name Iio.

“At the time I had no idea how big the song was gonna become. I don’t think anybody knew how massive it was gonna become. I started hearing all these strange names like oh “Sander, Pete Tong, Seb Fontaine, are all playing Rapture” I remembered how crazy it was when I first heard it on the radio. I freaked. I mean growing up in NY, since I was 14 I had gone to clubs like the Tunnel, the Palladium, Roxy and Limelight and really only knew a handful of names the likes of Tenaglia, Deep Dish, Sasha & Digweed. I had no idea that all these names would eventually go on to playing my record, I mean I remember my first 2 dance (Cassette Tapes!) being Danny Tenaglia’s “Tourism” and a Junior Vasquez mix compilation. It was all surreal,” Nadia says. What does the future hold in store for Nadia Ali? Well, the future is now!

Nadia recently collaborated with Armin Van Buuren on a track called “Who is Watching.” Much different than the high energy trance Van Buuren is known for, the track is very minimal, complete with an acoustic guitar. Remixes of “Who is Watching” are being played out at clubs now and the original version is available on Van Buuren’s CD “Shivers.” Nadia also collaborated with producers John Creamer & Stephane K and male vocalist/singer/songwriter Rosko on the duet “Something To Lose.” “I chose working with Armin Van Buuren (well known for his melodic trance productions) and John Creamer & Stephane K (known for their sexy deep progressive house) because I wanted to do two records very different from each other. The Van Buuren record is very emotional and melodic and the record with Creamer and K has a lot of energy and attitude. It’s also really interesting to work with them because both Armin Van Buuren and Creamer and K remixed “Rapture” and I always wanted to work with them,” says Nadia.

In 2008 Nadia released “Crash And Burn,” the first single from her forthcoming solo album, on her label Smile In Bed. With great support from DJs, and a strong remix package including powerful efforts from the likes of DJ Shah and Dean Coleman, the highly successful single continues to enjoy strong sales and heavy play around the world.

Nadia has performed in all parts of the world, from Texas to Taipei, Bucharest to Melbourne, and Moscow to Istanbul. She brings a unique passion and intensity to each of her performances, the result of a true connection to each track she sings. Nadia continues to 100% exclusively write and sing her own lyrics in order to bring across that true emotion to her fans. She is at the heart of what makes dance music young, fresh, exciting and new.