Amir Elsaffar

​In addition to his career as a jazz trumpeter, ElSaffar is also one of the world’s foremost practitioners of the Iraqi maqam as a singer and santour player. He is also a respected composer of music for contemporary classical contexts, in which he utilizes microtonality and Middle Eastern sensibilities.
He is also one of a select number of microtonal trumpet player in the world, able to play the subtle shadings of intonation and ornaments of maqam music on his instrument.
Born and raised just outside of Chicago, ElSaffar’s early musical education included performances with jazz and blues bands throughout the city. He also had a foray with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, where he worked with conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Daniel Barenboim, and Mstislav Rostropovich. Today, his music finds root in the Iraqi maqam, the music of his father’s homeland. But unlike many who dabble in a musical tradition only to give their music a superficial sheen of exoticism, ElSaffar’s commitment to Iraqi and Arabic culture runs deep: He has traveled the world to study with many of the world’s great maqam masters, including Hamid AlSaadi, the world’s leading authority on Iraqi maqam, who called ElSaffar “… one of the finest santour players and maqam singers in the world. I am proud of his dedication and continued commitment to discovering the secrets to this music.” ElSaffar is the music curator for Alwan for the Arts, the New York-based Middle Eastern cultural center in addition to leading the Alwan Ensemble, which specializes in the performance of Arab classical music. He is also the director of the Middle Eastern ensemble at Columbia University.
A 2013 winner of the prestigious Doris Duke Performing Artist Award. ElSaffar continues to grow as an artist. He has worked extensively in Europe over the past two years, collaborating with diverse musicians such as the Belgian group Aka Moon, Swedish composer C.C. Hennix, and a Berlin-based microtonal brass quintet. Last year, La Fondation Royaumont in France commissioned ElSaffar for a piece for string quartet plus voice and santour, which premiered at the Festival d'Avignon, one of the world's largest theater festivals, and Festival d'Aix, an opera festival. They have since commissioned him for three more works that will be performed at festivals throughout France over the next three years. In April, 2015 ElSaffar assembled an unprecedented ensemble of 17 musicians to realize a new work, “Rivers of Sound,” that made its premiere at Lincoln Center in New York City.