Mohamad Osman

Mohamad Osman is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, and music teacher from Syria. Born in Jarabulus in 1975, he began his musical studies playing the buzuq (lute) during his early childhood.

He later studied at the Higher Institute of Music in Damascus, graduating in 2000 as a buzuq and oud player. He was the Institute’s first graduate to focus on buzuq, an instrument played mostly in folk music and to accompany singing. Osman has given solo concerts across the Middle East, Europe, and the United States, and performed as soloist with the Syrian National Symphony Orchestra at the invitation of its late conductor, Solhi Al-Wadi. In his debut with the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of Lorin Maazel, Osman performed in Marcel Khalife’s “Arabian Concerto.”

As a composer and arranger, Osman has written a concerto for ney (flute) and orchestra, a piece for oud and buzuq, music for television and theatre, and numerous arrangements of regional and world music for the Syrian Oud Quartet, a group he founded. Since 2013 he has been an instructor of oud and buzuq at the Higher Institute of Music in Damascus.