Waed Bou Hassoun oud, voice

Since 2006, Waed Bou Hassoun has been pursuing an international career as a musician, singer, oud player and composer. She is also an ethnomusicologist. Originally from southern Syria, Waed Bou Hassoun was born in a village near Sweida, into a music-loving family: her father gave her a small oud when she was only seven years old. She sings poems that she gathers from the vast repertoire of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, as well as from ancient (7th–13th century) mystical Arab-Andalusian sources and from contemporary poets. She performs her own compositions, accompanying herself solo on the oud.
 
Waed Bou Hassoun has toured solo and in ensembles in the Arab world, in Europe, Canada, South Korea, and Colombia. In 2009, she recorded her first CD, “La voix de l’amour” (Institut du monde arabe), and was awarded the “Coup de cœur” by the Académie Charles Cros the same year. In 2014, she recorded her second solo CD for Buda Musique in Paris, “L’âme du Luth”, for voice and oud. This album also won a “Coup de cœur” from the Académie Charles Cros in 2015. In September 2016, her third CD, “La voix de la Passion”, was released by Buda Musique, followed in March 2019 by her fourth album, “Safar: les âmes retrouvées”, also with Buda Musique.
 
In parallel with her career as a soloist, Waed Bou Hassoun regularly collaborates with Jordi Savall and his ensemble Hespèrion XXI, both in concert and on recordings. She also works with Jordi Savall as artistic director on the implementation of the Creative Europe project Orpheus XXI – Music for Life and Dignity.
 
In March 2018, Waed Bou Hassoun was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture, Françoise Nyssen. Finally, in 2022, the Middle East and Muslim Worlds Thesis Prize was awarded to Waed Bou Hassoun for her thesis Chants et lamentations dans les rituels funéraires chez les Druzes du sud de la Syrie. Une approche ethnomusicologique, which she defended at the University of Paris Nanterre.