issa boulos, music, musician, oud, ud
(b Jerusalem, Palestine,
1968). Palestinian 'ud player, composer and teacher Issa
Boulos comes from a family of both musical and literary traditions and
began to study voice at the age of 7. At that early age, Issa showed
extraordinary talent in singing Arab classical maqam
repertoire. At the age of 13 he enrolled in the Institute of Fine
Arts in Ramallah to study the 'ud with Abu
Raw`hi 'Ibaidu. He graduated in 1985 and worked in Ramallah
as an arranger and performer of both folksongs and contemporary works
and a musician in the ensemble of Sariyyat Ramallah Troup for Music
and Released al-'Ashiq in 1986; and with al-Ra`hhâla
(with composer Jamil al-Sayih) he released Rasif al-Madinah
in 1989. During the early 1990s, Issa pursued music composition
more intensely as it offered him more flexible means of artistic expression
and richer musical sonorities and textures. Essentially, he started
exploring Western-music's principals of composition and orchestration
and incorporated various aspects of what he learned into his own music.
He managed to keep his art in line with the sensibilities of Palestinian
musical taste and maintained a pivotal link with the maqam tradition.
From 1991 to 1993, Issa composed over 200 instrumental and vocal pieces
and one large-scale extended work entitled Kawkab Akhar. This era was
the most experimental, challenging and yet prolific. He was appointed
director of Birzeit University's musical group Sanabil in addition
to training al-Funoun Popular Dance Troupe and Sariyyat Ramallah Troupe
for Music and Dance. This era was the most experimental, challenging
and yet prolific. His fascination with music towards higher levels of
expression and interpretation encouraged him to examine other aspects
of music-making, and simultaneously broaden his artistic perspective.
To express some of these issues musically, and after over 8 years
of living
in both Ramallah and Chicago, in 1994, he settled in Chicago and enrolled
in the music composition program at Columbia College Chicagoand studied
music composition with Gustavo Leone and Athanasios Zervas and later
at Roosevelt University with Robert Lombardo and Ilya Levinson. Enriched
by the previous ensemble's musical experiences, in 1998, he founded
the Issa Boulos Ensemble and continued to perform his original contemporary
compositions that ranged at that time from maqam compositions to jazz.
With this Ensemble, Issa Boulos's notoriety went well beyond Palestine
and he continued his lifelong far-reaching musical journey performing
his own original music. After completing his Masters in 2000, he spent
one year in his hometown where he was active as a composer, educator,
'udist, and instructor
of Western music theory and history, 'ud, chorus, ensemble and theory
of Arab music at the National Conservatory of Music, Ramallah. Issa
has given workshops and lecture-demonstrations at several American institutions
and colleges including the University of Chicago, Yale, and Michigan
Univesity. He is cofounder of Sama Music, leader of the al-Sharq
Ensemble, the Issa Boulos Ensemble, member
in Lingua Musica and Nawa Ensemble, founder
of the Arab Classical Music (ACMC)Society (ACMS), and has recently been
appointed director of the University of Chicago Middle
East Music Ensemble. Although he has continued to write instrumental
and vocal compositions, Boulos is best known for his theme works: Kawkab
Akhar (1993), a large-scale instrumental work that captured his
early stylistic development composed during the Palestinian Intifada,
which was followed by 'Arus al-Tira (1994), composed
while he was an undergraduate, Samar (1998), and his extended
work al-Hallaj (2000) which is a series
of composed Sufi poems penetrating the philosophy and tragic ending
of Abu al-Mughith al-Husayn Ibn Mansur al-`Hallaj. His
subsequent works include traditional Arab compositions and arrangements,
jazz, and film and theatre scores, notably those for Lysistrata 2000,
Catharsis and recently the film The New Americans. In one of
his orchestral compositions, Shortly After Life, Boulos used a variety
of Western classical compositional techniques; the work is a tribute
to his father Ibrahim Boulos. Boulos's music still depends extensively
on the melodic material of maqam; by treating this material through
improvisations and using various musical techniques. His blend of tradition
and innovation has forged important musical links between the Arab world
and the West. Issa continues to be involved with ACMC that he established
in 2003. As for his current personal projects, Issa is applying final
touches on his new work Rif for kemence and percussion.It will
be released later in the Spring of 2006. He is a recipient of many awards
and fellowships including the 2006 Artists Fellowship Award by the Illinois
Arts Council and the 2006 Palestinian Cultural Fund Award. Issa held
the position of a lecturer at the University of Chicago where he directed
the Middle East Music Ensemble until 2010. He is currently the Head
of the Arab Music Department at the newly established Qatar
Music Academy.
To read the story behind Rif click here. To listen
to excerpts from Rif click here.
