John Kameel Farah is a Toronto–based composer, pianist, electronic musician and visual artist. He studied composition and piano performance at the University of Toronto, where he received the Glenn Gould Composition Award twice during his studies. In 1999 he studied privately with Terry Riley in California, and later at the Arabic Music Retreat in Hartford. In 1998, he performed the complete solo piano works of Arnold Schoenberg in Toronto. Toronto’s NOW Magazine named his as Best Pianist 2006. Farah now focuses primarily on his own creative hybrid of improvisation, composition and electronic music. Simultaneously using piano, synthesizer, computer, and at times harpsichord, his solo performances exist somewhere between the concert hall and an experimental DJ set at a dance club, mixing forays into free improvisation, jazz, electro–acoustics, middle-eastern modes, and ambient minimalism with genres of Electronica such as Drum & Bass and Techno. He has also presented many of his own compositions both for solo piano as well as for string quartet, percussion groups, wind ensembles and electronic arrangements and remains active as a solo pianist. Farah performs regularly in Toronto, and has performed his music at festivals and venues across Europe, USA, Canada, the Middle–East, South Korea and Mexico. In 1999 and 2002, he visited the Edward Said National Conservatory in the West Bank, giving performances and masterclasses in Ramallah, East Jerusalem and Bethlehem. His upcoming CD "Unfolding" will be released on Dross:tik Records this July. In an effort to expand his musical palette, his music draws upon an interest in history, mythology and painting. As a visual artist, his ink drawings have been presented at solo and group exhibitions, most recently being the Visual-Artist-In-Residence at the Trane Studio jazz club in Toronto.
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