Uppsala theater
Friday March 22, 17.45
Duration: 20 minutes
Ahmad Al Khatib was born in 1974 in a Jordanian Palestinian refugee camp. He learned to play the oud as a child and then received instruction from the Palestinian musician Ahmad Abdel Qasem. He subsequently studied musicology and Western classical cello music at Yarmouk University (Jordan) with Japanese Cello teacher Moto Takao. In 1990 and 1991 was awarded first prize in multiple Oud (Oriental Lute), solo competitions.
He graduated with honors in 1997 and moved to Ramallah in Palestine, and joined the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music in East Jerusalem. He taught in the Department of Oriental Music and then became director of the Department. In 1999, Ahmad formed the group Karloma, which comprises other teachers from the Conservatory.
Ahmad has been living in Sweden since 2004, where he obtained a master’s in Musical Education Methodology. He teaches Modal Music and Composition Theory, and Ensemble Music at the University of Gothenburg’s Academy of Music and Drama.
His first solo album, Sada (‘Resonance’), was released in 2004. The album contains mainly his own compositions and tributes to Jamil and Munir Bashir, musicians originally from the ‘Iraqi school’, a school that combines Egyptian, Syrian and Turkish traditions. The Iraqi school has renewed the identity of Arabic music. Throughout the Middle East, Ahmad Al Khatib is seen as a perpetuation of the great virtuoso tradition of Oud.
