Joelle Khoury
Personal information
Joelle Khoury
Pianist, composer (classical music and jazz)
Contact information (Private)
+961 4 84057 & +961 4 871780
+961 3 812959
Contact information (Work)
Lebanese National Higher Conservatory of Music
489530 1 961 و 217289 1 961
Community/Lebanon Impact
In the past few years, my music has been performed and/or recorded or broadcasted, sometimes with a portrait of my personal course of life, in several European countries including: Austria, Germany, France, Belgium and Switzerland. The public is often surprised that the music they just heard was composed by an Arab woman. This my greatest accomplishment in the field, since being positively active (and not activist) and producing quality is the greatest means of changing attitudes towards women.
Work history
Previous Professions:
- Lecturer, American University of Beirut.
- Lecturer, Lebanese American University.
- Piano teacher, 1994 - present, Lebanese National Higher Conservatory of Music.
- Lecturer, 1994 - present, Lebanese National Higher Conservatory of Music.
Major Achievements
Publications (Books, Articles, Reports, etc.):
Discography:
- Tumbling Up (including a poem by Langston Hughes) and Is It So!, 2 jazz albums, In-Version, the Joelle Khoury Quintet. Joelle Khoury: piano and composition; 2 saxophones, bass and drums.
- Music and Poetry: 11 chamber orchestra and voice pieces, based on German romantic poetry and texts by 2 Lebanese poets (Goethe, Heine Novalis, Rilke, Nadia Tuéini, George Chehadé). Sponsored by the Lebanese National Conservatory and Goethe Institut Beirut. Joelle Khoury: piano and composition; Harout Fazlian: conductor; Lylia Dragomir: soprano.
- Dream She Is, a 55mn opera monodrama in Arabic. Chamber orchestra and electronics, commissioned by Quart de ton, Belgium. Joelle Khoury: piano, composition and text excerpts from poems by Lebanese poet Jacques Asswad; Fadia Tomb El Hage: voice; Harout Fazlian: conductor. Performed in Beirut, Switzerland and Austria (Esterhazy Palace, Haydn Hall, by Gidon Kremer’s prestigious Kremerata Baltica orchestra).
More compositions including some with video, electroacoustic music, painting, text and dance performance:
- Electroésie filmed live performance based on Lebanese poet Antoine Boulad’s book “poésie”, with Kinda Hassan (video art), Dima Hajjar (painting), 3 actresses, Joelle Khoury (composition, sound track, staging and live piano), cello.
- Jokari project sponsored by the Lebanese Ministry of Culture in the occasion of Beirut Capital of the Book, 2009. Based on poetry by Etel Adnan, Jad Hatem and Ritta Baddoura. Kinda Hassan: video art; Caroline Hatem: dance and choreography; Joelle Khoury: composition, sound track and live piano.
- How Blue the Sun, commissioned by Quart de ton, chamber and voice composition to be released in 2018, in Belgium, as part of a double album dedicated to living Lebanese composers. Text based on a book by Lebanese poet Sabah Zwein. Singer: Fadia Tomb El Hage. Ensemble Fragments.
Major achievements:
- Founded In-Version (a Jazz quintet dedicated to performing original Jazz compositions), 1995.
Exhibitions, lectures & performances:
- Monthly lectures around specific musical topics, ASSABIL Public Library, Monot.
- Of sounds and letters: conference given to the doctoral students in literature at the Lebanese University Doctoral School (October 2018).
- The Dionysian and the Apollonian in Carmen of Bizet, inspired by Nietzsche. Conference given in 2017, at the Lebanese University Doctoral School.
- History a Divine Poem: article commissioned by the Lucerne University, relating Bach to Leibniz, for the inauguration of their new department: Music and Theology. Published October 2015 (Grunewald).
- Of Arab Composers Today, commissioned by AFAC, the Arab Fund for Culture meeting 2011.
- “Bach/Leibniz/Kandinsky: the Unique and the Multiple” conference, Lebanese National Conservatory, December 2007.
- “My Body Myself and I”, conference in the company of Arab cultural journalists, (about a crisis of subjectivity throughout the history of music) Zawaya: 2006.
- “About women composers in the Arab world” (Freemuse conference) 2005
-
“Time Goes One Way” (against classification of art). Heinrich Boll Foundation Lebanon
Competences & Skills
Field(s) of Expertise:
- Music Composer ( jazz and classical music)
- Electroacoustics
- Pianist
- Philosophy
Languages:
- Arabic
- English
- French