Firas Andari

Lebanese vocalist, oud player, educator, and maestro of the Arabic maqam musical tradition, Firas Andari began his musical studies at the age of 6. Andari acquired his classical repertoire from his teachers by ear, a critically grounding asset for an oral musical methodology that dates back over 800 years. His teachers' musical lineage trace directly to great masters in Egypt and the Levant, giving Andari access to a music culture that is all but lost - maqam performance with a richness in intonation and style unadulterated by western standard notation and the colonial influences of the 20th century. In his U.S. debut, Andari performs maqam music from regions historically of the Ottoman and Persian empires; namely the Middle East, Egypt, Turkey, and North Africa—presenting the different forms characteristic to maqam's many offshoots, including muwashahat, tawashih, qudud, adwar, mawawil, and qasa‘id.

Presented in collaboration with Brooklyn Maqam