Firas ZREIK

Qanun

Age: 28 years old

Country: Palestine

Kanun Player, Composer & Arranger, born in Haifa and currently based in Boston in the USA, Firas received a full scholarship from the prestigious Berklee College of Music where he studied for five years, earning two bachelor degrees in Performance & Jazz Composition with high distinction.
He worked, recorded & performed with master musicians and artists from all over the world, including Roger Waters, Shankar Mahadevan, Shreya Goshal, Simon Shaheen, Bassam Saba, Amal Murkus, Fabrizio Cassol, Amir Al-Saffar, Aynur Dogan, Raghu Dixit and many more.
In addition, he performed all over the United States, Europe & the Middle East, both as a Kanun player and as a musical director in some of the most prestigious venues and festivals such as Boston Symphony Hall, Lincoln Center-NY, Carthage International Festival – Tunisia, Savannah Music Festival, Institut de Mont Arabe – Paris, Teatro Mediterraneo – Napoli, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Smithsonian Museum – Washington DC, Palais des Congrès – Belgium, Berklee Performance Center, The Jazz Gallery – NY & many more.
His mother, Amal Murkus is a leading Palestinian singer of international renown. Firas is the musical director of her band, he also recorded on her latest album, in addition to writing and composing many of her recent songs. The two have toured together in Europe, USA & the Middle East and are working on new albums.

Photo credit: Simon Fusillier