When Lebanese composer Marcel Khalife brought his 12-piece group Al Mayadine to Berklee Performance Center last Sunday, Boston Arab community turned out in force. But few other adventurers took the step into tire unknown. That is too bad, because Khalife and his superb accompanists offered as friendly; and approachable a primer on the pleasures of Arab music as you'll find anywhere.

A classical composer, popular singer, and innovator on his instrument, the lute-like oud, Khalife has earned the adoration of Lebanon's Muslims and Christians alike. Throughout the apocalyptic chaos of that country's civil war, lie risked his life to record and perform publicly, sometimes in abandoned concert halls. His ability to stir his audience to passionate song has carried him the moniker "Lebanon's Pete Seeger". At Berklee, he would sometimes start a piece by getting his well-primed crowd singing loudly and then using it to cue the band's entrance. This ultimate exchange did suggest the Seeger magic..

But at other unless Khalife conducted his group like an orchestra, guiding it through vivid, contrasting sections - grooves fiery enough to make the Gips Kings blush, melancholy lyrical passages, and ear-tick-ling cross rhythms. Al Mayadine's sound was grounded in angular elegant bass lines arid the taut slap of ail hourglass drum. High above, a flute arid clarinet played quick, fluttering unison lines - often with a drearily, minor-key feel. Between those poles, the percussive melodies and harmonies of struck (piano) and plucked ones (two ouds, and live jangly kanoon harp) spun out rich textures and counterpoints. An accodion helped to blend the sound with currents of long. sustained tones: two additional percussionists ornamented with rhythmic detail.

Khalife's silken voice soothed the music at times frantic rhythms. Even when he reached for high, edgy notes. lie controlled his expression masterfully. Often he wits joined by Oumayma Al khalife, with her strong, smoky alto.

Over the telephone a few days before his Boston visit, Khalife told me. "'The golden age of Arabic music was when the Arabs were in Andalusia. At that little, this music had a big influence. oil Western Even Henry VIII sent his niece to Andalusia to learn the music and enlighten English society about it."

Now, over 500 years after the Arabs were driven out of Andalusia. Khalife sees himself as part of a movement to reinvigorate a halted tradition. He feels this movement began with the work of composer Sayyed Darwish early in this century, "One of the filings Darwish did was to go to the public, to the street. He got music out of the people and incorporated it into Arabic classical music.' Similary, when Lebanon's civil war began in 1976, Khalife left his job at the Beirut Conservatory of Music and took to the streets. In a society under siege he bridged faiths. factions and high and low culture.

Khalife's Berklee show unfolded with brillant pacing. He conducted not only his musicians but the audience, which roared like rowdy rock fears on one number and sat in awed silence for the next, depending on the signals he gave. 'Arabic music always goes to the heart,' says Khalife. "What we are doing is to try to mix the heart and the mind."