born August 14, 1957 is an Azerbaijani musician and one of the foremost mugham singers in Azerbaijan. He was awarded the International Music Council-UNESCO Music Prize in 1999, one of the highest international accolades for music. His music is characterized by his vocal improvisation and represents a move away from the traditional style of mugham. Qasimov has recorded nine albums, three of which are mugham albums with his daughter, Farghana Qasimova.
According to The New York Times, "Alim Qasimov is simply one of the greatest singers alive, with a searing spontaneity that conjures passion and devotion, contemplation and incantation.
Emad Mohammad is a solo singer and musician from Saudi Arabia. His passion for playing music started at a young age and has continued throughout his life. People's positivity & love to music he played pushed Emad to learn and explore more in the field of music. The music surrounded him with wonderful people around him. He is grateful that the song "poem of women" was played at Unted Nations convention. His latest single is called "Wagti Maak". He hopes to perform soon new heartfelt music that can represent him authentically
Khalil Khoury is a Palestinian Qanoun, oud, Arabic percussion player, composer and arranger. His passion for music began at the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music (ESNCM) at the age of seven, where he started studying music. Khalil completed his diploma at the ESNCM in 2012 at the age of 16. A year later, he commenced his professional career in music and was offered a teaching position at the conservatory, which he has kept till this day. Khalil took the lead and participated in a series of Musician training programs that focus on both music theory and performance in order to gain experience and develop his skills. This started in 2010 after he was selected among the top three musicians from Palestine to take part in a significant music retreat with the Internationally renowned Palestinian Oud player, Simon Shaheen. In this retreat, a group of international Arab musicians were present to give workshops and private lessons to students. Khalil has won, in first-place, several music awards for his unique Qanoun playing. These took place in Palestine in 2006, 2010 and 2012. In 2015, Khalil performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. He was also featured on a handful of international tours/concerts in France, Spain, Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Greece, Vienna, Bahrein, Qatar, Algeria, Portugal, Amsterdam, etc. In 2016, Khalil was featured on a five-city tour in the UK with the Palestinian singer, Nai Barghouti. The band presented both original material and arrangements of classic Arabic repertoire with an Arabic-Jazz sound. The tour ended with a concert at the London Union Chapel, one of the best jazz venues in the UK. In March 2019, Khalil performed at the prestigious Aga Khan Music Awards, Lisbon. In November 2019, Khalil performed at The Royal Concertgebouw, Amsterdam In a tribute to the iconic Fairouz. In December 2019, Khalil performed at the Prince Claus Awards ceremony that took place at the Royal Palace in Amsterdam, in the presence of the Dutch Royal Family. Khalil’s practical work experience continues to be evident as he manifests in a wide range of local bands. He has been featured on a series of Albums by musicians, bands and music projects in which he participated as a multi instrumentalist, a coach and a composer. His main focus has recently been on recording and producing different projects that feature local musicians in Palestine from his own home studio. Khalil has completed his Bachelor’s degree in Oriental Music Performance at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance in 2018. Khalil was recently accepted to the highly selective advanced diploma program at the Abbey Road Institute in Amsterdam. As part of his professional career, he continues to tour both locally and internationally in attempt to amplify the voice of youth and create an impact through music.
a leading voice among the young Jordanian artists , has a sparkling talent, distinguished voice and an astonishing presence. With her own special style she revived music and songs from the Middle Eastern Heritage and folklore that was long forgotten.
Born in Amman 1977, obtained a Diploma in music from the Music Conservatory of Beirut.
Her music career began after her first live performance at Jerash festival in 1997, Since then Macadi has been active in the music scene where she performed in various cultural festival and events in Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia, Dubai, Abu Dhabi , Sharjah, Denmark, Belgium, Holland, Morocco, Oman, Kuwait, UK, Uzbekistan, Egypt and more
Biography Nai Barghouti is a 24-year-old award-winning Palestinian singer, composer and flute player. In 2020, she was announced as the winner of the “Young Talent Award” presented by the prestigious Royal Concertgebouw theater in Amsterdam. Concertgebouw’s managing director Simon Reinink described her saying: “Nai Barghouti is brimming with talent and has amazing presence as well as technical control. Her musicality is boundless. Whether she’s singing a jazz standard, an Arabic classical song or improvising on Bach, it’s effortless. She is a model for a new generation of musicians who embody and propagate various styles and cultures.” Nai launched her professional singing career in 2011, at the age of 14, with Munyati, a full program of classical Arabic songs of the Tarab genre. One of her significant musical achievements was performing at the United Nations headquarters in New York in November 2013 for the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. Commenting on that performance, Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) wrote of her: "So charming, so beautiful, so self-assured, soooooo musical." In March 2019, Nai was nominated as a finalist for the first ever Aga Khan music award. In May 2019, she graduated with a perfect score from the Conservatory of Amsterdam, where she explored the relationship between Arabic music and Jazz. She is now pursuing a master’s degree in music at the Conservatory. In November 2019, Nai gave a sold-out concert at Concertgebouw as a tribute to the Arab diva, Fairouz. In December 2019, she performed at the Prince Claus Awards ceremony at the Amsterdam Royal Palace. In February 2020, she performed at the prestigious Paris Philharmonic concert hall in a tribute to the late Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish.
Every once in a while a sultry soloist will shake up the world stage with their saintly expression. This bears appropriate to Nova Emad, a young Iraqi, whose voice has seized the global podium. Her conflict-torn roots have shaped her artistic abilities, allowing her to address and mesmerize a steadfast audience.
Daughter of legendary Iraqi vocalist, Seta Hagopian, she has adopted her mother’s ‘Warm voice of Iraq’ inscription. Her mother had Nova emulating the sounds of the 'golden age' such as Abdel Halim Hafez, Fairuz, and, of course, Oum Kalthoum.
Nova Emad speaks with the same soft, sensual cadences she uses when she sings — that graceful blend of sun, elegance, and rhythm that turns the familiar into something exotic, and the exotic into something intimate.
Raoudha Abdallah was born in Gabès, southern Tunisian city, on April 27, 1987. Her family realizing these qualities hastened to enroll in music clubs .. Raoudha was throughout his childhood very active too good in school clubs and in these scout clubs only in youth and culture houses. Professor Moncef Ben Ahmed was the first to have detected in her true artistic arrangements and especially in the field of singing and music, and that at the age of six and it was he who gave him the opportunity to to participate in the singing competition on the occasion of the commemoration of the world music day organized in 1999, which enabled him to win the prize of the best voice of the city of Gabès. This had to motivate his parents, who were themselves music lovers, to register him at the Regional Institute of Music of Gabès in order to perfect his innate musical gifts. Raoudha then studied the musical theories, the musical modes of the Arab orient as well as the modes of the Tunisian music. In the beginning Raoudha Abdallah sang with the troupe "Takht Musical Arabe" under the direction of Maestro Mongi Souii in Gabès, which gave him the opportunity to participate in several festivals with some of the most famous singers of the place . These experiences helped to improve his art and allowed him to learn a lot and get used to facing the public of cultural festivals.
Sarab is a Tunisian live band of four young musicians from different backgrounds with the same desire to create a unique musical style and different from the mainstream. With the desire to create its own path, Sarab is experimenting the symbiosis between different styles of music from different cultures: Between lyrics inspired by Arab-Tunisian heritage and the rhythms of contemporary music and Andalusian melodies, SARAB has made the fusion of styles its trademark. They have been working and experimenting with the Tunisian heritage since 2015. They released two projects: “Shema” in 2015 and “Ridi” in 2020 .
A Palestinian songwriter and composer from Ramallah, he has been working in this field for more than ten years and writes songs in Arabic
His start was at the beginning of the period of alternative music infiltrating into Arabic - traditional and classical Arabic. He presents songs with his guitar, and work with local musicians from Ramallah, Bethlehem
his first album, achieved satisfactory success despite its simplicity, Shadi made Several collaborative works with different artists from palestine jordan Belgium new Zealand and man more
Ziad El Ahmadie is a Lebanese composer and oud player who, in addition to being a talented performer, also performs for film, television, and theater productions.
He performs traditional Arabic music as well as original compositions, and has extensively toured both in Lebanon and internationally. He formed the band 'Group Beirut' in 1992, and has given concerts and recitals at the American University of Beirut, Lebanese American University, Al-Madina Theatre, Beirut Theatre, Beirut Arab University, as well as in Germany, Sweden, Italy, Spain, and Jordan.
Bab L' Bluz ( literally "The door of the Blues") is a Franco-Moroccan band created in 2018 in Marrakech.It is a Moroccan Psychedelic Rock band inspired by Gnawa and Hassani traditions, combining Rock, current music & Moroccan popular music.
Bab L' Bluz was born following the meeting of the Moroccan singer-guitarist Yousra Mansour and the French guitarist and producer Brice Bottin in Marrakech in early 2017. Both passionate about Gnawa music, they decide to learn together the Guembri. mid 2017, they compose a new repertoire of 10 tracks of powerful and current music, while respecting the analogical universe of the 60's & 70's. They want to mix their influences tastefully, and want to be labeled less as a world band than as a Moroccan psychedelic rock band.
At the end of 2018, they are joined by friends and musicians from Lyon Jérôme Bartholomé and Hafid Zouaoui, where they will do their first live concert on Radio Nova. After several concerts in different countries, the group released its first album Nayda! in June 2020 on Real World Records and a few months later performed live on ARTE concert!
Although it is the first album of Bab L' Bluz, as soon as it is released, Nayda! attracts a lot of attention and support from the press around the world: Mojo (Top 10 world Album of the year), Songlines (Best albums of 2020), The New York times, Vogue Arabia, BBC, Le mode, Financial time, Pan African Music, Uncut, Radio Nova... The group is even nominated for the Songlines music awards 2021 in the category Fusion!
During the health crisis of covid-19, the group does not stop working on the improvement of its sound, as well as on new songs and it is very impatient to play its album Nayda! all over the world once the borders will be opened.
An oud player and composer, born on 9th November, 1985 into a family with a deep rooted passion for music and oud making. His father, Hatem Joubran, a luthier (oud maker) his mother, Ibtisam, along with his sister Suha are all talented singers in their own respect. At the age of 18 Adnan joined his two elder brothers, the Oud players, Samir and Wissam Joubran, to form the first oud trio in the world, known today as Le Trio Joubran, whose debut performance was in 2004 at Luxembourg Gardens, Paris.
Since this debut performance, Adnan has traveled the world performing in various renown festivals, theaters and music halls. At the age of 23 he performed at the prestigious Carnegie Hall (NYC) and at 27, Olympia (Paris), passing by Radio City Hall (NYC), Salle Pleyel (Paris) and Theatre de Champs Elysees (Paris), to name a few of the many infamous music halls they have played in around the world.
Adnan’s albums with the Trio (Majaz and Asfar), have won numerous prizes and awards. They have been chosen to compose music for award winning and Oscar nominated documentaries and films such as Le Dernier Vol by Karim dridi, starring Marion Cotillard and Guillaume Canet. Adieu Gary by Nassim Amaouche, starring Jean Pierre Bakri, which won best Music for Films award in Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF 2011). The Last Friday by Yahya al Abdallah, which also won best Music for Films award in DIFF (2012) and finally the infamous Oscar Nominated Five Broken Cameras (2013). They have topped the World Music charts in France with a Number 1 Album and have been privileged to collaborate with many artists such as the late Mahmoud Darwish, Chkrr and Dhafer Youssef. Adnan has also featured as a guest for Ibrahim Maalouf and Rodrigo & Gabriela and created the show Eko Du Oud with the French juggler Vincent Berhaut.
After 10 years of Parisian life, Adnan has created his own musical identity alongside his ongoing project with the Trio. Whilst respecting the traditional way of playing the oud he has followed his passion desire to propose something different and new. With these experiences and challenges, Adnan has created his debut solo album, Boarders Behind, expressing through music, his new identity of compositions, rhythms, virtuosity and feelings.
BORDERS BEHIND is Adnan’s debut solo album. It is the fruit of two years of work on individual compositions and experiments, in which a new musical identity based on traditional oriental music mixed with other cultures such as Indian, Flamenco, Jazz and Classical music is born.
For his debut album, Adnan’s oud virtuosity has been excelled by his collaborations with Prabhu Edouard, who brings the essence of India with his delicate touch on the tables. Valentin Mussou on the cello, who adds the sense of Jazz and Classical music. Cajon and Palmas played by Javier Sanchez accenting the Flamenco passionate rhythms. And finally, inviting the legendary Flamenco flute and saxaphone player, Jorge Pardo, who made a remarkable career and finger print with Paco De Lucia. With this fine array of musical diversity, Adnan Joubran flies beyond the borders of these cultures and traditions.
I was born in 1993, in El Jadida,a coastal town in Moroccoo . I have seven siblings and my parents have always loved arts; and shared this love with us. Harvesting red algae to extract Agar Agar to earn a living, they introduced us to nature; our surroundings. Through my link to them, to earth, to ocean and to arts, I met traditional moroccan music: el Aita with kharboucha and khadija Mergoum Fatna bent el Houssine and others , Songs of Moroccan Jews with Sami Maghribi, benja,ain bouzeglou... el Hassani of desert with Dimi, Meryem Hassan and malouma mint midah , el Malhoun with Houssine Toulaly and jil jiala after remaking songs from this ancestral music . I, then, met 60's Reggae with Bob Marley and Jazz with Nina Simone and Ella fitzgerald. I also met Blues and Rock. I write music; world music if I have to name it
A fascinating journey between the sounds and cultures of the Mediterranean sea in the research for a musical and lyrical language that unites its various populations. This is the idea behind the project of Stefano Saletti and Banda Ikona, "a journey to rediscover the different types of music that tell the stories about the passion of the Mediterranean people". the Mediterranean people".
Stefano Saletti (multi-instrumentalist, expert in Mediterranean music and director of international ensembles) is the founder of the Banda Ikona. Their original compositions are sung in Sabir, a lingua franca used by sailors, pirates, fishermen, merchants and ship-owners in Mediterranean ports to communicate with one another: from Genoa to Tangiers, from Salonika to Istanbul, from Marseilles to Algiers, from Valencia to Palermo, until the early decades of the twentieth century this form of sea-faring “Esperanto” developed little by little availing of terms from Spanish, Italian, French and Arabic.
The new cd is called "Mediterraneo ostinato" (Finisterre FT85/2021) and "sing the stories of the tenacious Mediterranean. ...sing the stories of the ancient, resilient, tenacious Mediterranean peoples. Tenacious as the rhythmic repetitions in the music that transform us in ritual and transport us in trance”.
In 2016 with "Soundcity: sounds from border towns" Stefano Saletti started from the recordings that, in the past few years, he had made around the Mediterranean in many border cities: Lampedusa, Istanbul, Tangier, Lisbon, Jaffa, Sarajevo, Ventotene... Sounds, noises, radios, voices, sound spaces, buskers have all inspired his melodies, lyrics and rhythms. In June 2016 “Soundcity” has reached the top ten of World Music Charts Europe (4th) and remained on the charts for three months and in May 2016 the top ten of the Transglobal World Music Charts.
Their previous cd called “Folkpolitik” (2012) contains Saletti’s original compositions and arrangements of tunes by the Mediterranean authors who, through their music, have described the struggle against power, suffering, persecution, arrests and violence. In October 2012 “Folkpolitik” has reached the top ten of World Music Charts Europe and remained on the charts for three months.
The cd “Marea cu Sarea” (out in 2008) was listed among the ten best new issues on the Folk Roots chart, the prestigious English world music magazine, in addition to being listed as one of the best releases of 2008 by the World Music Charts Europe. “Marea cu Sarea” was also awarded the “Coups de coeur du jury” award at Babel Med 2009 in Marseilles.
Their first album “Stari Most” issued in 2005, was dedicated to the historical bridge in Mostar (Bosnia), bombed in 1993, and which has always represented a symbol of the meeting and passage between East and West.
In recent years Stefano Saletti and the Piccola Banda Ikona have toured extensively, playing at major international festival in Italy, Portugal, Spain, France, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Morocco, Hungary, Greece, Egypt and Germany.
Stefano Saletti and the Piccola Banda Ikona boast numerous collaborations with writers and theatre directors in national and international tours.
SAID MRAD is a music lover, who eats, sleeps and consumes music. Born in Lebanon, his career in the music scene dates back to 1990 when he first started as a DJ playing in some of the most respected nightclubs around Lebanon such as PRIVÉ, JET SET, OPERA, and GOTHA.
Throughout the years, he acquired an admirable sense for music and became well known and respected as “One of the Best DJ’s and the Guru of the Electronic Dance Music from the Middle East Region”.
In 2001, Said produced his legendary debut album 2001 Nights, which went on to be a multi platinum selling album and as a result of its huge success it was named The Bestselling Arabic album ever released in the region.
The single Alf Leila wa Leila (1001 Nights) backed with a very cool video was the massive smash hit of the year 2001, the track was virtually played everywhere from clubs to Radios to TVs. This was the defining stage in the Arabian Dance Music history! This massive success resulted in getting major interest from the major record company UNIVERSAL Music group to sign Said Mrad. Universal released this album in June 2002 in France where it entered the national Top 100 Best Selling Albums in FRANCE and ranked 34!
The huge success made SAID MRAD release another album in 2002 titled Said Mrad Plays Baligh Hamdi followed by a video clip for the song Hikaya. This also was a huge success making it one of the best selling albums in the Middle East. The success of his second album made another major record label to show interest. As a result, WARNER Music Group signed the second album and released it in Europe in the summer of 2002 with another success catapulting Said as one of the major Artists from the Middle East.
In 2003 Said released his 3rd album Another 1001 Nights and was named best selling album in 2004.
With the significant success in Europe, both companies launched his album worldwide, and since then, Said has been touring the globe with many sold out headliner events.
Said has released further albums including a collaboration album named 1001 Nights Society in 2005, Esmerim in 2006 followed by a video clip of the song “You Wanna Mix It” and another one for the remix “Hizzy ya Nawaem” and his latest masterpiece was in 2009 with the album ElectrOriental. All of these albums have followed suit and have been very successful to date.
In 2010, Emi did a Best of Said Mrad, choosing some of the best tracks, and in 2012, the album reached the Number One selling album in the MENA Region, breaking all the sales records!
Furthermore, Sony America released a single of Ricky Martin “Midnight Man” remixed by Said Mrad, Despina Vandi collaborated with Said Mrad and remixed her smash hit “GIA” in 2005.
Quincy Jones and Bill Cosby released a double album of jam sessions and collaborated with Said Mrad on a track called “United”. The album was released in the USA on 2010!
Following his success all over the Middle East and worldwide, Sony Music along with Shakira’s management collaborated with Said on a remix for Shakira’s new single She Wolf and released it on her album entitled She Wolf as well as a maxi single in the markets! The remix was an extreme hit that Shakira’s management and Sony music decided to release the remix as a video clip.
In 2013, Said collaborated with the Number 1 singer in Greece, Anna Vissi on her single and got released in the summer of 2013!
A new album was released in 2016, Play it Loud, in collaboration with Daxar music in the Middle East.