Kinan Azmeh

Kinan Azmeh (* 1976 in Damascus ) is a Syrian clarinetist and composer.

Life and work

His music career began with six, when he received music lessons at the Damascus Arab Academy of Music. As a day job in the event that there is nothing to be with the artist's career, he studied at the University of Damascus electrical engineering and joined the engineering studies successfully after five years.

In addition, he devoted himself to music education. In 1997, he Azmeh the first Arab musician Nikolai Rubinstein Prize. He lives and works since 1998 in New York City. There, he studied at the Juilliard School, a music conservatory with drama school, where he made his master.

Kinan Azmeh played as a soloist at the Opéra Bastille in Paris, the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, at the Royal Albert Hall of Arts and Sciences in London and in the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow. There were also numerous smaller concerts in other European countries. He played with well known personalities such as John Coolidge Adams, Sir Roger Norrington and others.

In Syria he still occurs occasionally. Together with Issam Rafea, the lute virtuoso and conductor of the National Orchestra for Oriental music, Azmeh founded in 2003 in Damascus, the ensemble Hiwar (dialogue). Intended, jazz with classic Arabic and Western forms not only to mix Azmeh as a composer as well as an instrumentalist, but new combinations.