Simon Shaheen & Qantara

Simon Shaheen has established himself as a virtuoso on not one, but two instruments -- the violin and the oud, a Middle Eastern precursor of the lute. In addition to being a master player, he's also a renowned composer of Arabic and Western music and a teacher who has done a great deal to foster Arabic music in the West. Born in 1955 in Tarshiha, Galilee, music surrounded him from the start, as his father Hikmet Shaheen taught and composed Arabic music as well as played the oud. At the age of five, Shaheen began learning the oud, and a year later picked up the violin. "I just ...