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 1990s, under the influence of newly developed
musical trends, Boulos's career took a new direction. He pursued
music composition in response to a contemporary concern for revolutionary
cultural change and richer and more flexible responses to widely different
dramatic requirements. He started exploring and incorporating the performance
practices, educational principles and aesthetic values of Western art
music while adapting his art to suit the sensibilities of Palestinian
politicized taste and maintained a pivotal link with the maqam
tradition by continuing its ancient line of oral transmission. From
1991 to 1993, Issa composed over 200 instrumental and vocal pieces and
one large-scale work titled Kawkab Akhar. 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.
It laid out conventional and modern compositional devices as abstract
tools rather than absolute. His fascination with music towards
higher levels of expression and interpretation encouraged him to examine
other aspects of sound, and simultaneously broaden his artistic perspective,
which was substantiated by the increasing number of questions concerning
music making. In 1994 he moved to Chicago, where he studied music
composition at Columbia College Chicago with Gustavo Leone and Athanasios
Zervas and later at Roosevelt University with Robert Lombardo and Ilya
Levinson. In 1998 he co-founded the Issa Boulos Ensemble
(previously Quartet), performing his original contemporary compositions
that ranged from classical Arab compositions to jazz. 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 is currently a part-time lecturer at the University
of Chicago. His duties include directing the Middle East Music Ensemble
at the University.
To read the story behind Rif click here. To listen
to excerpts from Rif click here.
