SOLOIST SPOTLIGHT: KINAN AZMEH

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 Symphony Orchestra Berlin has won Germany’s OpusKlassik Award in 2019. Recent commissions include works for the Seattle Symphony, the New York Philharmonic and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.

He is a graduate of The Juilliard School, the Damascus High Institute of Music, and Damascus University’s School of Electrical Engineering. Kinan 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 and he has recently been appointed to the National Council For the Arts on a nomination by president Biden. LEARN MORE

SOLOIST SPOTLIGHT: DINUK WIJERATNE

The Sri Lankan-born Canadian Dinuk Wijeratne is a JUNO and multi-award-winning composer, conductor and pianist who has been described by the New York Times as 'exuberantly creative' and by the Toronto Star as ‘an artist who reflects a positive vision of our cultural future’. His boundary-crossing work sees him equally at home in collaborations with symphony orchestras and string quartets, tabla players and DJs, and takes him to international venues as poles apart as the Berlin Philharmonie and the North Sea Jazz Festival.

Dinuk has also appeared at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center (Washington DC), Opera Bastille (Paris), Lincoln Center (New York), Teatro Colón (Buenos Aires), Sri Lanka, Japan, and across the Middle East. He was featured as a main character in 'What would Beethoven do?' - the documentary about innovation in Classical music featuring Eric Whitacre, Bobby McFerrin and Ben Zander. Recent performances include those with the San Francisco Symphony, National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, and the Banff International String Quartet Competition; forthcoming projects include collaborations with Grammy-winners Elliot Madore and Avi Avital.

Dinuk has shared the stage and/or composed for: Yo Yo Ma & the Silk Road Ensemble, James Ehnes, Zakir Hussain, Sandeep Das, Kinan Azmeh, Ed Thigpen, Eric Vloeimans, the Gryphon Trio, TorQ Percussion, the Afiara, Danel, and Cecilia String Quartets; and with every major Canadian orchestra. Dinuk holds a doctorate from the University of Toronto, having also studied at the Juilliard School (with John Corigliano), Mannes College (US), and the Royal Northern College of Music (UK). He was recently appointed Assistant Professor to the Faculty of Music at the University of Ottawa. His music and collaborative work embrace the great diversity of his international background and influences. LEARN MORE