LIVE: KHYAM ALLAMI
For the second performance night of the series, Nabihah invited Khyam Allami to play a special set designed specifically for the Rifle Range at Somerset House.
Khyam Allami is an Iraqi multi-instrumentalist musician, composer, mix engineer and label manager with a formidable and continually growing international reputation.
Despite only taking up the Oud – his principal instrument – in his twenties, Allami rapidly became a performer of international renown. His remarkably assured 2011 debut solo album Resonance/Dissonance was widely critically praised and led him to high profile performances across Europe and the Arab world including the BBC Proms (UK), WOMAD (UK), Supersonic (UK), CTM (DE), Incubate (NL) and Irtijal (LB).
Born in Damascus, Syria in 1981 to Iraqi parents, and raised in London from the age of 9, Allami began his musical path by studying the violin for a minor role in the Syrian arthouse film Al-Tahaleb (Rimon Butros, 1990). Following short stints as a violinist in school orchestras in London he moved on to Guitar, Bass and Drums during his teens before continuing on as a Drummer in the metal, post-rock and progressive rock bands Art of Burning Water, Ursa and Knifeworld.