About the group
The Issa Boulos Ensemble was  founded in December, 1998 by composer/'ud player Issa Boulos, guitarist Jennifer Trowbridge, clarinetist Donald Jacobs, and percussionist Najib Bahri. The main objective of the group is to explore the beauty of maqam music, in both its modern and traditional manifestations. The group performs original music composed by Issa Boulos and enjoys an artistic environment of productive teamwork. Since April, 1999, the group's first project, Samar, has been performed at universities, institutions, art galleries, clubs in the Chicago area and abroad. The group has evolved to include several local musicians including Jonathan Paul on upright bass, Douglas Brush as percussionist, Kinan Abu-Afach on cello and Naomi Gonzalez on violin. Currently this group works only on
when commissioned and has a much wider collaborative base for each project.

About the music
A Samar Gathering, Samar, is a Middle Eastern ritual where people gather late in the evening around a fire to socialize, share ideas, sing, play, and talk about personal fears, obsessions, love, death, beauty, and freedom. Issa Boulos composed an intimate musical reflection of this experience. The work consists of a group of pieces, each portraying a different emotional layer of the ritual.