Images/Bio Sources: https://www.arts.gov/honors/heritage/simon-shaheen http://www.simonshaheen.com/biography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Shaheen http://www.mastersoftraditionalarts.org/artists/298 https://college.berklee.edu/people/simon-shaheen

Historical Note

Simon Shaheen (1955) is a Palestinian-American composer and oud and violin virtuoso. Born in Tarshiha, Shaheen holds Israeli citizenship. Shaheen's family moved to Haifi when he was two years old. At age five, he began playing the oud and later began playing the violin. In 1978, Shaheen graduated from the Academy of Music in Jerusalem and was appointed its instructor of Arab music, performance, and theory. In 1980, he emigrated to the United States and continued his studies at the Manhattan School of Music and eventually Columbia University. He formed the Near Eastern Music Ensemble in New York in 1982, and also began workshops, lectures, and demonstrations in academic institutions. To this day, Shaheen spends nearly half of his time working with schools and universities including Julliard, Columbia, Princeton, Brown, Harvard, Yale, University of California in San Diego, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and various others. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, Meet the Composer, the Jerome Foundation, Continental Harmony, and Yellow Springs Institute; his theatrical repertoire includes Majnun Layla, (performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC and The Museum of Natural History in New York), The Book and the Stranger (from Kalilah Wa-Dimanah), Possible City, and Collateral Damage. Throughout the 1990s, Shaheen released four albums of his own: Saltanah, Turath, Taqasim, and Simon Shaheen: The Music of Mohamed Abdel Wahab. Since 1994, he has produced the Annual Arab Festival or Arts in New York, and in 1997 he founded the Annual Arabic Music Retreat. He also contributed selections to soundtracks for The Sheltering Sky and Malcolm X , as well as composed the soundtrack for the United Nations-sponsored documentary celebrating the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Human Rights Charter, For Everyone Everywhere, in its entirety. His band, Qantara, aims to showcase Shaheen's vision for the fusion between Arab, jazz, Western classical, and Latin American music. Shaheen tours extensively with his two bands, Qantara and the Near Eastern Music Ensemble, and also as a solo artist and academic music lecturer.