Musical Mosaic: Juzoor wa Ghusoon (Roots & Branches)

From Ottoman era rhythms to contemporary harmonies, composer Kareem Roustom discusses music from his native Syria and how it has shaped his artistic voice.

More about our guest speaker:

Syrian-American Kareem Roustom is an Emmy-nominated composer whose genre-crossing collaborations include music commissioned for the Kronos Quartet, the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago, the Dallas Symphony, and the Grand Teton Music Festival, where in 2018 Roustom was composer-in-residence. Roustom’s music has been performed by orchestras that include the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic, and at renowned festivals & halls such as the Salzburg Festival, Carnegie Hall, and the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires. Roustom’s music has also been recorded by the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester (Berlin) and the Philharmonia Orchestra (London). The Chicago Tribune wrote that Roustom is “a gifted and accomplished artist, one of the most prominent active Arab-American composers.” The Guardian (London) wrote that Roustom’s music is “arrestingly quirky and postmodern…music with lots of personality.”

Guest speaker presented by Finck & Perras.