Contact email: nmaysaud@gmail.com

Biography: Nebal Maysaud is an award-winning queer Lebanese Druze composer based in Philadelphia. A recipient of the first Kluge Young Composer’s Competition and the James Ming Prize in Composition at Lawrence University, Maysaud converges Western and Middle Eastern classical music styles to explore questions of faith, identity, and power.

Their music has been performed by the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra, Juventas New Music Ensemble, and Lawrence University Wind Ensemble and Opera Department; and also featured in Art Song Lab 2016 and the District New Music Conference 2018.

They have contributed articles about diversity and classical music to NewMusicBox and convened community music workshops at YallaPunk 2019. Maysaud studied with composer Mark Camphouse before entering the studios of John Benson, Andrew Cole, Dirk D’Ase, Joanne Metcalf, and Asha Srinivasan. They hold a B.M. in Music Composition from Lawrence University.

Pronouns: they/them

List of works: https://www.nebalmaysaud.com/works

Recording: for Edward Said: a poem for piano and electronics (2021)

This piece traces Edward Said’s migration from Cairo, where he spent part of his boyhood, to New York City. Excerpts from Said’s Orientalism are read and incorporated in the work.

The recording of the work can be found here:

https://nebalmaysaud.bandcamp.com/track/for-edward-said-a-poem-for-piano-and-electronics

The digital album, on which for Edward Said is found, can be purchased for USD6 here:

https://nebalmaysaud.bandcamp.com/album/decolonized-arabesques-other-works

Composer’s website: https://www.nebalmaysaud.com/