Nizar Rohana
Oud
- Started in
- 2013
- Finished PhD in
- 2021
- Musician type
- Oud
- Host institution
- Leiden University
- Personal website
- www.nizarrohana.com
- Nationality
- Israel
Nizar Rohana is an Israeli-born Palestinian oud player. He was born in the village of Isfiya on Mount Carmel in 1975, and began playing music while still very young. He discovered the oud when he was 15, and in 1996 he moved to Jerusalem to study. In 2001 he was awarded a Bachelor of Music and Arts (specialisms in oud performance and Musicology) from the Arabic Music Department of the Jerusalem Academy for Music and Dance and the Musicology Department of the Hebrew University. For some time he then focused his work on the music of the great Egyptian composer Muhammad Al-Qasabji, completing his Master’s degree in 2006.
Today, Nizar is a prominent oud player on the Palestinian music scene and internationally. He has gained wide experience on the stage as a soloist and within a range of groups, playing traditional, modern, experimental and world music. During the last twelve years he has performed in prestigious venues in countries such as Japan, Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, the USA and in Europe.
Nizar launched his first album "Sard" (Narration) in May 2008. Here he maintains an idiomatic language for the oud, yet achieves refreshing expressions and rhythms through dialogues with double bass, qanoun and percussion.
Between 2000 and 2007 Nizar worked as one of the main oud teachers at the Edward Said National Conservatory in Jerusalem, Ramallah, and Bethlehem. He was the Academic Director of the Jerusalem branch in 2003 and 2005 and also the Deputy of Academic Affairs in the academic year 2006-2007.
Related
Project
Performing the Present
Improvisation and Composition in Solo Oud Performance
In this project, Rohana aims to further develop and enrich his improvisation and composition skills and techniques, and to develop a framework to continually expand his performance repertoire.
Related events
15 December 2021 (13.45)
PhD Defense Nizar Rohana
‘Ūd Taqsīm as a Model of Pre-Composition
On December 15, Nizar Rohana will defend his PhD thesis ‘Ūd Taqsīm as a Model of Pre-Composition at Leiden University.
This research discusses the creation of several finished works for solo ‘ūd. These pieces take the improvisation practice of two pillars of modern Arabic music, namely the Egyptians Muḥammad al-Qaṣabjī and Riyāḍ al-Sunbāṭī, as a reference model and as a source of inspiration.
14 December 2021 (20.00)
PhD Concert Nizar Rohana
‘Ūd Taqsīm as a Model of Pre-Composition
On December 14 Nizar Rohana will present the artistic outcomes of his research project in a a concert at Sijthoff in Leiden.
Nizar will perform several new works for solo ‘ūd. These pieces take the improvisation practice of two pillars of modern Arabic music, namely the Egyptians Muḥammad al-Qaṣabjī and Riyāḍ al-Sunbāṭī, as a reference model and as a source of inspiration.