Short version
Michal Massoud is a musician, podcaster, and teacher, currently based in New York City. He splits his musical activities between composing, conducting, and performing on the oud, a Middle Eastern string instrument popular in Michal’s native Lebanon. He is the co-artistic director and co-founder of Amalgama, a contemporary music ensemble dedicated to integrating fully notated music and free improvisation. Michal is a full-time music teacher at Harbor Charter School in East Harlem, as well as teaching online private lessons in composition, theory, and ear training. He is also the host of The Movers and Makers Podcast, a podcast of interviews, conversations, and debates, with people who make things.
Long Version
Michal Massoud is a musician, podcaster, and teacher, currently based in New York City. He splits his musical activities between composing, conducting, and performing on various instruments. Michal has composed for a wide range of instrumentations from orchestras to chamber ensembles. Sample works include Quintette for string quartet and piano, and A Birthday Present for solo singer and chamber orchestra. In recent years, he has turned his focus to writing scores that bridge the gap between fully-composed music and free improvisations. This pushed him to explore different notational approaches, from mostly-notated scores with open individual parts to graphic scores and drawings. This in turn led him and violinist/violist Lena Vidulich to co-found Amalgama, a chamber ensemble dedicated to integrating the two extremes of fully-notated music and free improvisations into a unified practice. As a conductor, Michal frequently collaborates with NY-based composers. Recent conducting projects include the new opera Simulacrum, Philippe Leroux’s Voi(rex), and The Lost Words, a series of premieres of compositions written specifically for Amalgama on the poems of the eponymous book by Robert MacFarlane. As a performer, Michal splits his time between the piano and the oud, an Arab string instrument found throughout the Middle East, including Michal’s native Lebanon. His performances on the instrument range from traditional Arabic music to Fusion, as well as commissioning new compositions written specifically for the instrument. Michal is also a full-time teacher at Harbor Charter School of Science and Arts, an elementary school in East Harlem, as well as teaching online private lessons in composition, theory, and ear training. Lastly, Michal is the host of The Movers and Makers Podcast, a podcast of interviews, conversations, and debates with people who make things.