ISSA BOULOS com
composer, oudist, udist
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BIOGRAPHY


(b Jerusalem, Palestine, 1968). Palestinian/American 'ud player, composer, ethnomusicologist, 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 the Arab classical maqam repertoire. At the age of 13 he enrolled in the Institute of Fine Arts in Ramallah to study the 'ud with 'Abd al-Hamid 'Ibaidu (Abu Raw`hi). He graduated from high school 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 where he released al-'Ashiq album in 1986. He was also a member of al-Ra`hhâla group (with composer Jamil al-Sayih), and released Rasif al-Madinah album in 1989. He collaborated with numerous bands and musicians both in Chicago and Palestine and from 1991 to 1993, he composed over 200 instrumental and vocal pieces and one large-scale extended work entitled Kawkab Akhar. This era was the most experimental, challenging, and 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. 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 permanently in Chicago and went back to college and enrolled in the music composition program at Columbia College Chicago and studied music composition with Gustavo Leone, William Russo, and Athanasios Zervas and later at Roosevelt University with Robert Lombardo and Ilya Levinson. In most of his compositions, he managed to maintain various aspects of the maqam traditions. In 1998, he founded the Issa Boulos Quartet and continued to perform his original contemporary compositions that ranged at that time from maqam compositions to jazz. With this ensemble, 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 (currently the Edward Said Conservatory) in Ramallah. Issa has given workshops and lecture-demonstrations at several American institutions and colleges including the University of Chicago, Yale, Oxford, University of Texas, the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, University of Wisconsin, Michigan University, and many more. He acted as director of the University of Chicago's Middle East Music Ensemble from 1998 to 2010. 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 the documentaries The New Americans, and Nice Bombs. In his orchestral compositions, Boulos uses a variety of traditional instruments and utilizes the melodic material of maqam. His blend of tradition and innovation has forged important musical links between various musical traditions. He is a recipient of many awards and fellowships He acted as the Head of Music at the Qatar Music Academy and currently directing the Community Music and Art Center at Harper College. Boulos obtained his Ph.D. in ethnomusicology in 2020 from Leiden University. His dissertation is entitled The Palestinian Music-Making Experience in the West Bank, the 1920s to 1959: Nationalism, Colonialism, and Identity.

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