Abed Azrie or Abed Azrié (b. Aleppo

Aleppo

Aleppo is the largest city in Syria and the capital of Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Syrian governorate. With an official population of 2,301,570 , expanding to over 2.5 million in the metropolitan area, it is also one of the largest cities in the Levant...

, 1945), is a Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

n singer who performs Arab classical music, although he claims to belong to no particular music tradition. In his work he sets ancient and modern Arabic texts to traditional instruments (such as the ney

Ney

The ney is an end-blown flute that figures prominently in Middle Eastern music. In some of these musical traditions, it is the only wind instrument used. It is a very ancient instrument, with depictions of ney players appearing in wall paintings in the Egyptian pyramids and actual neys being found...

, kanun, darbuka, violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

, flute

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

 and lute

Lute

Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....

), and synthesizer

Synthesizer

A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...

s.

He was born in Aleppo

Aleppo

Aleppo is the largest city in Syria and the capital of Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Syrian governorate. With an official population of 2,301,570 , expanding to over 2.5 million in the metropolitan area, it is also one of the largest cities in the Levant...

, and after living for a time in Beirut

Beirut

Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...

 moved to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 at the age of 22 where he studied Western classical music. While there he translated classical poetry, such as the Sumerian

Sumerian language

Sumerian is the language of ancient Sumer, which was spoken in southern Mesopotamia since at least the 4th millennium BC. During the 3rd millennium BC, there developed a very intimate cultural symbiosis between the Sumerians and the Akkadians, which included widespread bilingualism...

 Epic of Gilgamesh

Epic of Gilgamesh

Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from Mesopotamia and is among the earliest known works of literature. Scholars believe that it originated as a series of Sumerian legends and poems about the protagonist of the story, Gilgamesh king of Uruk, which were fashioned into a longer Akkadian epic much...

, into French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

. He has stated that he prefers to live in the West, saying in a 2000 interview that he has an "inability to work in the Arab countries, in which the way people live is still conditioned by halal

Halal

Halal is a term designating any object or an action which is permissible to use or engage in, according to Islamic law. The term is used to designate food seen as permissible according to Islamic law...

 and haram

Haram

The Arabic term has a meaning of "sanctuary" or "holy site" in Islam.-Etymology:The Arabic language has two separate words, and , both derived from the same triliteral Semitic root . Both of these words can mean "forbidden" and/or "sacred" in a general way, but each has also developed some...

. Here I can produce contemporary art, I can work in freedom, and there is 'motion' around what I produce: journalism, concerts, programme…Nobody tells me to write a song for a specific political occasion."

His music has been featured in the films Al Leja, directed by Ryad Chaia, and Elia Suleiman's Chronicle of a Disappearance.

Discography

• 1990: Aromates
• 1994: Epopée de Gilgamesh
• 1996: Lapis Lazuli
• 1999: Pour enfants seulement
• 1999: Omar Khayyam
• 2001: Venessia - sung in Venetian dialect.
• 2006: Suerte Live
• 2007: Chants d'amour et d'ivresse (Live A Radio France)
• 2008: Mystique - Sufi poems
• 2009: Évangile selon Jean oratorio in Arabic, 2CD
• 2010: Satie En Orient with Ensemble Sarband
• 2011: Epopée De Gilgamesh (New Recording 2011)