(b Jaffa, 3 July 1941). Palestinian/Lebanese conductor of Arab classical music. From 1961 to 1965 he studied the theory of western classical music at the National Conservatory of Music in Beirut. In 1965 he moved to Moscow and studied there until 1976; he graduated first from the Gnesin Academy of Music as a choral conductor and subsequently studied symphony and opera conducting with Ginsberg, Kitaienko and Rozhdestvensky at the Tchaikovsky State Conservatory, gaining the Master of Fine Arts in 1976. He was a professor of music at the Conservatory from 1976 to 1977, after which he returned to Lebanon and turned his attention to Arab music, establishing the Beirut Ensemble for Arabic Music in 1980. In 1988 he was appointed professor at the Higher Institute for Arabic Music in Cairo, and in the following year he co-founded the Arab National Ensemble for Music at the Cairo Opera House. As a musical director and conductor he has worked with both adults and children, dedicating himself to the preservation and promotion of classical Arab music through weekly concerts; he has collaborated with distinguished performers including Fayrūz and Wadī’al-Sāfī.
REEM KELANI