Abdel-Gawad, Riad

Classical Oriental | Egypt

"Riad Abdel-Gawad composes music and performs on the violin which, although does not fit easily into any "box" or genre, points towards likely frontiers that music has taken and will take in the 21st-century. Having composed in three very distinct styles of composition — "contemporary and avant-garde", "polystylistic postmodern", and "international authentic world", his music crosses and fuses a variety of Western and Eastern genres and canons. Having immersed himself for over a decade in a unique guru-based artistic school in Cairo, Riad Abdel-Gawad is considered amongst his peers to be one of the finest artists of his generation, whose lineage to a remarkably distinct school of Arab music and a mastery of its improvisatory practice is undisputed."

By Mohamed A. Mostafa, journalist for el-Gumhuriyya and el-Nagm