Waed Bouhassoun was born near the city of Suwayda in the south of Syria and grew up in a music-loving family. She has been playing the oud since the age of seven. As a child, she lived in Yemen with her parents for two years, discovering the local music at an early age. She received her professional education at the Damascus Conservatory, which at the time was strongly influenced by Western classical music. Her highly personal musical style draws on all these diverse influences. She quickly made a name for herself with her first public appearances in Aleppo and soon received invitations to the Maison des Cultures du Monde and the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris. Since then, she has performed throughout Europe, in South Korea, Canada, and Columbia. Her award-winning debut album La Voix de l’amour was released in 2009, followed by L’Âme du luth in 2014 and La Voix de la passion in 2016. In addition to her solo career, she regularly appears with Jordi Savall and his ensemble Hespèrion XXI and as artistic director of the Orpheus 21 project. She has also given workshops for refugees and displaced children cut off from their cultural roots. Waed Bouhassoun has been a regular guest at the Pierre Boulez Saal since her debut as part of the 2019 Arabic Music Days. In 2018, she was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. She resides in Paris and received her Ph.D. in ethnomusicology in 2020 with a thesis on funeral songs of the Druzes of southern Syria.

May 2026

Artyom Minasyan was born in 1979 in Vedi, Armenia. He started playing duduk at the age of ten and, following his studies at the State Conservatory of Yerevan, joined the Tatoul Altounian Song and Dance Ensemble as first-chair duduk player. Since the 2000s he has performed in concert and on tour in Armenia as well as abroad. In 2004, he released his first studio recording. He has been based in France since 2007.

May 2026

Yousef Zayed was born into a Palestinian family of musicians and began learning the oud and Arabic percussion instruments at an early age. Having grown up with the maqam-based music of his home, he later immersed himself in Arabic, Ottoman, and Western music theory alongside studies in journalism. Today, he performs internationally as a multi-instrumentalist and passes on his experience as a music teacher to the next generation.

May 2026

Shahab Azinmehr was born in Tehran in 1985. He first studied historic preservation and later Persian music under renowned Iranian masters such as Mohammad Musavi, Dariush Talai, Massoud Shaari, Behrouz Hemmati, and Reza Parvizzadeh. Performing as an instrumentalist on the tar and setar, as well as a vocalist, he has appeared at numerous festivals and contributed to a wide range of CD recordings. In 2020, he released his first album, Showq-e Mastur, featuring music for solo setar.

May 2026

A specialist in hurdy-gurdies and lute instruments from the European Middle Ages, the Mediterranean region, and South-West and Central Asia, Catalan musician Efrén López has collaborated with a wide range of artists and ensembles, including Jordi Savall, Keyvan Chemirani, Derya Türkan, and the Orchestre de Chambre de Genève. In addition to performing in concerts around the world, he has contributed to more than 120 CD recordings. He is also active as a composer, arranger, and producer, and has written music for films, theater, and dance projects.

May 2026