Join us at the Palestine Museum for a captivating afternoon with Ensemble Phoenicia, a New York-based contemporary music ensemble dedicated to celebrating and innovating Middle Eastern classical music. The program will feature music by composers Kareem Roustom, Kinan Azmeh, and Sami Seif, exploring themes from Palestinian heritage to tributes to luminaries like Edward Said. The event will showcase the richness of Middle Eastern music through contemporary classical interpretations, bridging traditional motifs with modern expressions.
Lebanese composer and music theorist Sami Seif (b. 1998) has been praised as “a distinctive compositional voice” who creates “intoxicating and fascinating soundworld[s]” (Carla Rees, Pan Journal of the British Flute Society). Described as “very tasteful and flavorful” with “beautiful, sensitive writing!” (Webster University Young Composers Competition), his music is inspired by the aesthetics, philosophies, paradigms and poetry of his Middle-Eastern heritage. His latest musical concerns center around the phenomenology of time and of differing degrees of focus.
A passionate and enthusiastic collaborator, Seif has worked with numerous renowned musicians. Previous and upcoming collaborators include Mary Kay Fink and Stanley Konopka of The Cleveland Orchestra, Carla Rees, Josh Modney, ETHEL, Vinay Parameswaran, Marcelo Lehninger, the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra, the Odin Quartet, TEMPO Ensemble, Earplay, Ensemble 126, Ensemble Metamorphosis, Juan Riveros, Amer Hasan, Drew Hosler, Dustin White, and Lana Stafford, among others. Seif’s music has been recognized internationally by various institutions such as ASCAP, SOCAN, the RED NOTE New Music Festival, the Metropolitan Youth Orchestra of New York, the New York Composers Circle, the Stamford Music and Arts Academy, the Foundation for Modern Music, the Ohio Federation of Music Clubs, the Cleveland Composer’s Guild, the Arizona Flute Society, Webster University, Abundant Silence, and Warren County Summer Music School, among others. Additionally, he was selected as a finalist for the 2019 Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra call for scores from a pool of more than 2200 applicants from more than 90 countries. In 2020, he was selected again from a larger pool of almost 8000 applicants.
Originally from the small town of Ashkout in Mount Lebanon, he was born to a non-musical family in Abu Dhabi and he is fluent in Arabic, French and English. He started out at the age of twelve as a self-taught musician, composing and playing on microtonal keyboards, specially designed for Arabic music. Not having had access to formal music education, Seif taught himself how to read and write music by reading theory textbooks. He later formally studied piano, composition, audio engineering, and sound synthesis.
Seif completed his undergraduate studies in composition and music theory at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where, he was honored with the Donald Erb prize in composition and the Beth Pearce Nelson award in music theory upon graduation. He is currently a doctoral fellow at the CUNY Graduate Center.
Born in Chicago, Palestinian-American clarinetist Amer Hasan maintains a balanced career as a recitalist, chamber musician, orchestral player, and educator. Through his performances, Amer showcases his tenacity as an artist and citizen by creating an immersive and visceral concert experience. Performing and teaching classical music has led him to engage with audiences all over the world, including performances across the U.S., Latin America, Europe, and Jordan.
A winner of the 2021 Astral National Competition, Amer has performed as a soloist with the Oistrakh Symphony of Chicago, the Brevard Music Center Orchestra, the Bucks County Symphony Orchestra, and the Akron Symphony Orchestra. He has received top awards in the Vandoren Emerging Artist Competition, the Yamaha Young Performing Artists Competition, and the Jan and Beattie Wood Concerto Competition, among others.
As a chamber musician, Amer has performed and won top prizes at the Fischoff and M-Prize chamber music competitions. His collaboration with other musicians is often centered on the creation and performance of new music. He was the clarinetist of the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble in 2021 and subsequently premiered over a dozen new works for chamber ensembles. In 2023, Amer performed in the Yale School of Music's Oneppo Chamber Music Series as a winner of the school's annual chamber music competition and made his Carnegie Hall debut with the UN Chamber Music Society. Upcoming projects include performances with Ensemble Phoenicia, a new NYC-based ensemble dedicated to performing contemporary classical music by Middle Eastern composers.
Amer joined the Akron Symphony Orchestra as principal clarinet in 2019 while pursuing his undergraduate degree at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. While living in Cleveland, he was also the principal clarinet of the Firelands Symphony Orchestra and frequently performed as a guest musician with the Cleveland Pops Orchestra. He additionally performed as principal clarinet of the Artosphere Festival Orchestra in Fayetteville for two seasons and will return for the festival orchestra's final season under the baton of Corrado Rovaris in 2024.
A passionate educator, Amer has taught clarinet and chamber music at Oberlin College and served as a teaching artist for Oberlin Conservatory's tour in Jordan. He has presented guest classes at the University of Akron, the Akron Youth Symphony, and is currently a teaching artist with Yale University's Music in Schools Initiative.
Amer is received his Master of Music degree at the Yale School of Music and his Bachelor of Music degree from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.
French-Lebanese-American violist Noémie Chemali enjoys a diverse career as a soloist, chamber musician, educator, and writer. Praised for her “formidable technique” (The Flip Side) and her “technical and interpretive skills” (New Music Buff), Ms. Chemali has received grants and awards from Chamber Music America, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Juilliard School, and the Barenboim-Said Foundation. Her performances have taken her across the United States, Canada, and Europe, performing in prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Auditorium Conciliazione, Salle Bourgie, la Maison Symphonique de Montréal, the United Nations Headquarters, and many others. Noémie is the violist and co-founder of Ensemble Phoenicia, a New York-based contemporary music ensemble that celebrates the rich heritage and artistic innovation of contemporary Middle Eastern classical music. She recently released her debut album of music by Lebanese composers, Opus 961 under the label Dreyer-Gaido, which has been critically acclaimed and featured by publications such as La Scena Musicale, Strings Magazine, The Violin Channel, L’agenda Culturel, L’Orient le Jour, Oberon’s Grove, and Chelsea Pianista, amongst others.
Passionate about community engagement, she co-founded the Hildegard Project, which aims to bring music written by women composers to women’s shelters in the greater Montreal area and was invited to speak about her work at the Classical Evolution/Revolution Conference in Santa Barbara, CA. In 2020, she founded Music@Daybreak, an interdisciplinary performance and research project which features performances at homeless shelters in collaboration with the Sociology department at Mercer University. She was a 2021 Gluck Community Engagement Fellowship Recipient at the Juilliard School, where she served as the group leader of the UnMute Piano Quintet, which played outreach concerts throughout New York City. Most recently, she performed a sold-out Opus 961 album launch concert at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music in New York in support of MSF (Doctors Without Borders).
Raffi Boden is a NY-based cellist, composer and educator known for his versatility and innovation in a variety of genres. Equally at home in classical and klezmer, Raffi holds a Masters from the Juilliard School, where he was a student of Joel Krosnick and a frequent performer with the Axiom ensemble. He holds a BM in music and BA in French from Oberlin College & Conservatory, where he was the winner of the 2018 Concerto Competition, served as Principal Cellist of the Oberlin Orchestra in their 2019 Carnegie Hall performance, and premiered several works with the Contemporary Ensemble. Raffi has won fellowships to study at the Kneisel Hall and Aspen festivals and in 2023 was a featured performer at the Caroga Lake Arts Festival. He made his international debut in Paris in 2018, performing in a trio with renowned French clarinetist Michel Lethiec at the Salle Cortot.
In the klezmer world, Raffi is a member of the band Mamaliga, with whom he’s performed internationally as faculty at Yiddish Summer Weimar, KlezKanada and Yiddish New York. Their debut album of original klezmer compositions, Dos Gildn Bletl, was released in 2021 and hailed as “virtuosic and vibrant.” The title track won Best Instrumental Composition at klezmer’s “Bubbe Awards.” Raffi was in the Juilliard production of “Indecent”, for which he worked with music director Lisa Gutkin (The Klezmatics) to compose a cello part for the band.
Finnish-American violinist Charlotte Loukola is a "technically astonishing" musician celebrated for her "exquisite" solo work. She has garnered numerous awards, including 1st place in both the International Music and Stars Awards Competition (2021) and Rising Talents of Americas (2018). Charlotte has performed solo concerts across Europe and holds several accolades as a chamber musician, most notably with the ILO Quartet.
Charlotte's musical journey began at age 3 in the USA, leading her to study at Sibelius Academy’s Junior Academy in Finland. She holds dual Bachelor’s degrees in Violin Performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Sibelius Academy, along with a minor in business management from Case Western Reserve University. As of fall 2022, she is pursuing her Master's at the Juilliard School under Prof. Masao Kawasaki.
Throughout her academic journey, she has participated in numerous international festivals and masterclasses, playing alongside eminent violinists. Charlotte has performed with prestigious youth orchestras, including the Jean Sibelius Orchestra and the National Youth Orchestra of the United States. Her performances have taken her to world-renowned venues like Carnegie Hall. She plays on a French Paul Blanchard violin and has received significant scholarships from prominent foundations.
Insia Malik is a versatile violinist with experience in a wide array of styles and languages of artistic expression. Her musical encounters have unfolded at off-Broadway theaters, restaurants, and venues as varied as Le Poisson Rouge, Carnegie Hall, Bowery Poetry Club, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the TriBeCa Film Festival, the Festival Jazz Perú Internacional in Lima, and a living room near you. You might find her air-bowing Vivaldi in a comedy sketch on NBC’s Saturday Night Live or jamming at a Beirut nightclub.
Insia began her music career in the worlds of classical and contemporary music, playing with groups such as the Chelsea Symphony and Mimesis Ensemble. Since 2010, Insia’s musical inclinations have expanded to include the performance of Middle Eastern music. Pursuing serious study of the Arabic violin with prominent New York-based master musicians Simon Shaheen and Bassam Saba, she began to perform with the New York Arabic Orchestra at venues such as Symphony Space, Merkin Hall, Detroit Symphony Hall, and Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors. She further extended her grasp of repertoire from playing in New York's Middle Eastern restaurant scene. She currently appears regularly with the Detroit-based National Arab Orchestra, an ensemble bringing together musicians from across the country to present traditional repertoire. She has shared the stage with Shaheen and Saba, as well as riqq legend Michel Merhej and prominent composer and musician, Marcel Khalife. She has been a frequent participant at Simon Shaheen’s annual Arabic Music Retreat, where she has also studied 'ud, the Middle Eastern lute.
Insia’s interactions with the rich musical traditions of the Middle East have opened her up to diverse artistic projects that draw on far-flung idioms, improvisation, and innovative modal and rhythmic colors. Insia is recognized for her deep soulful tone on the fiddle, proficiency in learning new music both by ear and with quick transcriptions, and the ability to transcend cultures and traditions with a style all her own.
Insia completed double bachelor degrees in Violin Performance (in the studio of Gregory Fulkerson) and Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies at New York University. She is a violin instructor, teaching students of all levels and ages (students ranging from 5 to 75), with experience in teaching both group classes and private lessons. She was previously a violin coach for the InterSchool Orchestras of New York (ISO).
Insia earned her Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from the Graduate Center at the City University of New York in 2022. Insia has been invited to the Manhattan School of Music and New York University to speak about Middle Eastern musics and history as well as to demonstrate concepts of music theory and performance on the violin. Insia is an Assistant Editor at RILM (Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale).