Photo by Martina Novak
Kinan Azmeh, clarinet and composer
Hailed as a “virtuoso, intensely soulful” by the New York Times and “spellbinding” by the New Yorker, Syrian-born, Brooklyn-based genre-bending composer and clarinetist Kinan Azmeh has been touring the globe with great acclaim as a soloist, composer, and improviser. He has collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma, Daniel Barenboim, John McLaughlin, Aynur and Djivan Gasparian, among others. He leads his own bands Hewar and the Kinan Azmeh CityBand. He is a Silkroad Ensemble artist with whom he won a Grammy in 2016. His recent orchestral album Uneven Sky with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchestrer Berlin won Germany’s Opus Klassik award in 2019.
Recent commissions include works for the Seattle Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. He is a graduate of the Juilliard School, Damascus High Institute of Music, and Damascus University’s School of Electrical Engineering. Mr. Azmeh holds a doctorate in music from the City University of New York. His first opera Songs for Days to Come was premiered in Germany in June 2022 to great success. He has recently been appointed to the National Council on the Arts on a nomination by President Biden. www.kinanazmeh.com