Performance Program Staff

Issa Boulos, Director of the Middle East Music Ensemble, is a composer, 'ud performer, critic, researcher, writer, and lyricist, with works covering various genres and achieving worldwide recognition. A native of Palestine, Boulos moved to Chicago in 1994, where he studied music composition at Columbia College Chicago with Gustavo Leone and Athanasios Zervas, and later at Roosevelt University with Robert Lombardo and Ilya Levinson, completing a Master of Music degree in composition. He has been featured at festivals and in recordings and as both composer and performer, and been covered by virtually all media major networks including CNN, PBS, CBS, NBC, CLTV, CAN TV, the Chicago Tribune, Sun-Times, Reader, Chicago Weekly, and RedEye. His works include Kawkab Akhar, Shortly After Life, Lysistrata, Catharsis, Sama, al-Hallaj, Rif, music for the PBS documentary The New American, and Nice Bombs. Boulos is the recipient of awards and fellowships, most recently an Artists Fellowship Award from the Illinois Arts Council. He also was commissioned to write four pieces for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and his group Nawa; the pieces were premiered in September 2006.

Office: Eckhardt Library 217
Phone: (773)702-8778
Email: iboulos@uchicago.edu