Kinan Azmeh


Kinan Azmeh, is a Syrian clarinet player and composer of contemporary music. Performing with orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, the Seattle Symphony, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, or the Syrian Symphony Orchestra, he has played both as a soloist of classical works as well as of contemporary compositions.

Life and career

Born in Damascus, Syria in 1976, Azmeh began to play the clarinet at age six. Originally taking lessons on the violin, he switched to an even-handed instrument that left-handed players did not play too differently from right-handed players. Azmeh studied at the Arab conservatory of music in Damascus. At the University of Damascus, he double-majored in electrical engineering and music. Azmeh received his master's degree and graduate diploma in music from the Juilliard School in New York City. In 1997, Azmeh was the first Arab musician to win the first prize in the Nicolay Rubinstein International Youth competition in Moscow, Russia.
In 1995, Azmeh joined the pop music band Kulna Sawa, founded by composer and songwriter Iyad Rimawi and other young Syrian musicians. They produced two albums and were quite successful in the Middle East. In 2003, Azmeh, singer Dima Orsho, oud player Issam el Rafea and others started the Syrian world fusion band Hewar. On his website, Azmeh describes Hewar as "an attempt to transcend the barriers of cultural disparities and misconceptions, and establish a civilized communication which builds on what brings humans closer together rather than separates them." He claims that Hewar's music draws from a variety of influences, from both the Arab world and the West. In addition, Azmeh plays with the New York City-based City Band and with the band Neolexica. As a student at Juillard, Azmeh co-founded Neolexica with pianist Dinuk Wijeratne.
In 2009, Azmeh played at the Arabesque Festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. He has also played with the Syrian National Symphony Orchestra, debuting a clarinet concerto written especially for him by Syrian composer Zaid Jabri at the opening of the Damascus Opera House. In addition, he has performed and recorded with Daniel Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, as well as with Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble that won a Grammy Award for the album Sing Me Home in 2017.
Having performed frequently in Germany, for example in Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie, Azmeh is also a permanent guest musician and workshop mentor of the Morgenland Festival in Osnabrück, Germany. In 2019, he published a double CD called "Uneven Sky", with Yo-Yo Ma as guest artist on cello and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, presenting works by Syrian contemporary composers as well as his own. This album was awarded the prestigious :de:Klassik Opus Award|Klassik Opus Award in the same year.
Azmeh is based in New York City, where he received his Ph.D. in 2013 at the City University of New York with Charles Neidich. From there, he regularly traveled to Damascus, where he played in a Syrian chamber group and has given numerous concerts and workshops. These trips have ended, however, since the beginning of the Syrian Civil War in 2011. In March 2017, Azmeh made international news, because he was unable to return to New York City for some time, following the issuance of Executive Order 13769 by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Discography

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  • Uneven Sky, with Yo-Yo Ma and Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, :de:Opus Klassik Award|Opus Klassik Award in Germany
  • Levant, with Eric Vloeimans and Jeroen van Vliet
  • Orient & Occident, with the Mendelssohn Chamber Orchestra
  • Elastic City, with the Kinan Azmeh Quartet
  • Complex Stories, Simple Sounds, with the Azmeh-Wijeratne Duo
  • Syrian Contemporary Chamber Music, with the Damascus Festival Chamber Players
  • Rigodon, original sound track
  • Musaique, with Kulna Sawa
  • Kulna Sawa, with Kulna Sawa

    as member of Hewar (Syrian world music band)

  • Hewar
  • with guest artist Manfred Leuchter
  • Letters to a homeland