Musicians Intensive

Biographies

Ghazi Al-Mulaifi & Boom.Diwan

Ghazi Faisal Al-Mulaifi, PhD (b. 1977) is an ethnomusicologist who earned his Doctorate of Philosophy in Music in Music from New York University (2015). In addition to working as an assistant professor of music for the Public Authority of Applied Education and Training in Kuwait, Al- Mulaifi is also a Venice Biennale artist, composer, global jazz musician, and ensemble leader. His research interests include: Kuwaiti pearl diving music, global jazz, and heritage production. His current musical efforts include the creation of his ensemble Boom.Diwan; where he and traditional Kuwaiti musicians merge Kuwaiti bahri (sea) rhythms with global jazz traditions for the purpose of creating a new Kuwaiti music.

Nduduzo Makhathini

Nduduzo Makhathini is an award-winning pianist, improvisor, healer and scholar from South Africa. He is a recipient of prestigious awards such as the Standard Bank Young Artist Award, South African Music Award (SAMA) and AFRIMA among others that have made him an influential figure. Makhathini has nine albums under his belt with his last album Modes of Communication: Letters from the Underworlds on Blue Note Records and many as a sideman.

He has performed and collaborated with the Jazz at Lincoln Centre Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis. Moreover, he has performed with Azar Lawrence, Billy Harper, Nasheet Waits, Logan Richardson among many other greats.

Makhathini has also done prestigious venues such as the Blue Note and Jazz at Lincoln Centre in New York. He was also in the line-up for this year’s Winter Jazz Fest.

As an academic Makhathini is heading a music department at the historic University of Fort Hare while completing his PhD at Stellenbosch University. Makhathini’s work moves between jazz and improvisation while making connections to African cosmological aspects with a strong focus on ritual.

Kinan Azmeh

Hailed as “intensely soulful” and a “virtuoso” by The New York Times and “spellbinding” by The New Yorker, Winner of Opus Klassik award in 2019 clarinetist and composer Kinan Azmeh has gained international recognition for what the CBC has called his “incredibly rich sound” and his distinctive compositional voice across diverse musical genres.

Originally from Damascus, Syria, Kinan Azmeh brings his music to all corners of the world as a soloist, composer and improviser. Notable appearances include the Opera Bastille, Paris; Tchaikovsky Grand Hall, Moscow; Carnegie Hall and the UN General Assembly, New York; the Royal Albert Hall, London; Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires; Philharmonie, Berlin; the Library of Congress, the Kennedy Center, Washington DC; the Mozarteum, Salzburg, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie; and in his native Syria at the opening concert of the Damascus Opera House.

He has appeared as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, the Dusseldorf Symphony, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, the Qatar Philharmonic and the Syrian Symphony Orchestra among others, and has shared the stage with such musical luminaries as Yo-Yo Ma, Daniel Barenboim, Marcel Khalife, John McLaughlin, Francois Rabbath Aynur and Jivan Gasparian.

Kinan’s compositions include several works for solo, chamber, and orchestral music, as well as music for film, live illustration, and electronics. His resent works were commissioned by The New York Philharmonic, The Seattle Symphony, The Knights Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Elbphilharmonie, Apple Hill string quartet, Quatuor Voce, Brooklyn Rider, Cello Octet Amsterdam, Aizuri Quartet and Bob Wilson.
An advocate for new music, several concertos were dedicated to him by composers such as Kareem Roustom, Dia Succari, Dinuk Wijeratne, Zaid Jabri, Saad Haddad and Guss Janssen, in addition to a large number of chamber music works.
In addition to his own Arab-Jazz Quartet CityBand and his Hewar trio, he has also been playing with the Silkroad Ensemble since 2012, whose 2017 Grammy Award-winning album “Sing Me Home” features Kinan as a clarinetist and composer.
Kinan Azmeh is a graduate of New York’s Juilliard School as a student of Charles Neidich, and of both the Damascus High institute of Music where he studied with Shukry Sahwki, Nicolay Viovanof and Anatoly Moratof, and Damascus University’s School of Electrical Engineering. Kinan earned his doctorate degree in music from the City University of New York in 2013.
He is currently working on his first opera which is scheduled to premiere in Osnabruck, Germany in June 2022.

Sahra Halgan

Sahra Halgan presents a mix of original compositions and traditional Somali songs through distorted guitars, African percussion, and Sahra’s distinctive warbling vocals. With her unique vocal style, Sahra sings about love, gratitude, and rebuilding her nation, using poetry typical of the Somali language. Each member of the group brings their own distinctive background into the music: Krol, who has spent time in Bamako studying Malian percussions, uses his set of hand drums to drive tracks such as “Dhesha Dheshu” and “Caaqil,” while Salètes’ distorted guitars and hypnotic riffs give the record a solid rock backbone. A new addition to the group, keyboard player Graham Mushnik, injects some of that Golden Era psychedelia into the record. “We bring our own identity to the music, but I think we respect the meaning and the melodies of Somali music” says Salètes.

Souad Asla-Lemma

Flagship artist of the new generation of southern Algeria, heir to the Gnawa tradition and its trances that heal the soul, Souad Asla overflows with talent and humanity. His voice takes us to the gates of the desert, while his music rich in crossbreeding carries a strong identity and a rebellious spirit that lets us glimpse the future. Whether with her personal project Jawal, with the group LEMMA that she has been carrying since 2017, or more recently with “Sahariennes” or “Les Héritières” a creation in tribute to Cheikha Rimitti, she takes the public to each of her concerts in the tireless atmosphere of “Lila” with impressive influence and generosity.