Amir John Haddad (born 1975) is a German-Spanish

flamenco guitar A flamenco guitar is a guitar similar to a classical guitar but with thinner tops and less internal bracing. It usually has nylon strings, like the classical guitar, but it generally possesses a livelier, more gritty sound compared to the clas ...

ist and multi-instrumentalist, based in Spain since 1997. He was the official

oud , image=File:oud2.jpg , image_capt=Syrian oud made by Abdo Nahat in 1921 , background= , classification= * String instruments *Necked bowl lutes , hornbostel_sachs=321.321-6 , hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded with a plectrum , ...

bouzouki The bouzouki (, also ; el, μπουζούκι ; alt. pl. ''bouzoukia'', from Greek ), also spelled buzuki or buzuci, is a musical instrument popular in Greece. It is a member of the long-necked lute family, with a round body with a flat top and ...

and

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

player for

Radio Tarifa Radio Tarifa was a Spanish World music ensemble, combining Flamenco, Arab-Andalusian music, Arabic music, Moorish music and other musical influences of the Mediterranean, the Middle Ages and the Caribbean. The name of the ensemble comes from an ...

for almost ten years and in that role received a nomination for Best Folk Album at the

Latin Grammy Awards of 2004 The 5th Annual Latin Grammy Awards were held on Wednesday, September 1, 2004, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. This was the last telecast of the awards nationally in the United States in English with a CBS contract. Effective in 2005, t ...

Background

Haddad was born in

Freiburg im Breisgau Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic German, Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population o ...

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

(now Germany) in 1975, to a Colombian mother and a Palestinian father. He began learning the Arabic

at home from his Palestinian father Rimon Haddad, and at the age of 8 he took up flamenco guitar and gave his first public performance at the age of 12. In 1997, at the age of 22, he moved to

Jerez de la Frontera Jerez de la Frontera (), or simply Jerez (), is a Spanish city and municipality in the province of Cádiz in the autonomous community of Andalusia, in southwestern Spain, located midway between the Atlantic Ocean and the Cádiz Mountains. , the ...

, one of the cultural homes of flamenco, to further his skills among the masters there, and moved to

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

a year later. There he often performs in clubs such as ''Las Carboneras'', ''Café de Chinitas'', ''Corral de la Pacheca'' and ''Casa Patas''. Haddad has performed worldwide and has played at such venues as the

Royal Festival Hall The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,700-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge, in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is a Grade I l ...

, the

Barbican Centre The Barbican Centre is a performing arts centre in the Barbican Estate of the City of London and the largest of its kind in Europe. The centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exhi ...

and the

Royal Albert Hall The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London. One of the UK's most treasured and distinctive buildings, it is held in trust for the nation and managed by a registered charity which receives no govern ...

in London, the HotHouse jazz club in Chicago, the

Town Hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

in New York, Luna Park in Los Angeles, the Teatro Bellini in Palermo, and the Palau de la música and Teatro Tivoli in

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

. He was the official oud,

and

player for

for almost ten years and whilst there received a nomination for Best Folk Album at the

. Haddad has performed at numerous festivals including Festival de la Guitarra de Córdoba, MIDEA Festival Tenerife Canary Islands and the Murcia Tres Culturas Festival. In 1999 he won first prize for his original music composition at the Certamen Nacional de Coreografia para Danza Española y Flamenco (National Choreography Competition for Spanish Dance and Flamenco). He's the guitarist for the World of Hans Zimmer band.

Style and compositions

As a flamenco player Haddad is noted for his rich chord voicings, with a clear

Moorish The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages. Moors are not a distinct or se ...

and Arabic influence. He frequently uses sophisticated jazz chords and innovative extended voicings for major and minor chords, and often creates a mysterious and atmospheric Moorish ambiance to his compositions through a lush tapestry of flat ninth, minor major seventh and augmented chords. Additionally he often uses slash chords, gripping the bass string. His ''

picados A flamenco guitar is a guitar similar to a classical guitar but with thinner tops and less internal bracing. It usually has nylon strings, like the classical guitar, but it generally possesses a livelier, more gritty sound compared to the clas ...

'' are typically heavily executed and crisp-sounding, and his rasqueados are cascading and dynamic. He is also an adept player of

rock music Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States an ...

and

metal A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typicall ...

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...

and embraces a wide range of styles. In March 2013 Haddad, in collaboration with Thomas Vogt and Héctor Tellini, released the album ''9 Guitarras'', featuring flamenco music with an Arabic and Oriental flavour. The album takes its title from the nine different flamenco guitar, one for each track, loaned to him by guitar reseller Mundo Flamenco. His best-known compositions, ''Suena el viento'' (Rumba), ''Punta y tacón'' (Alegría), ''Recuerdos'' (Farruca) and ''Dos Palomas Vuelan'' (Balada), all feature on the album.

References

External links

Official website
(in Spanish)
Official website
(English version) {{DEFAULTSORT:Haddad, Amir John 1975 births Living people 21st-century guitarists 21st-century German male musicians Flamenco guitarists German emigrants to Spain German guitarists German people of Colombian descent German people of Palestinian descent Juno Reactor members German male guitarists German multi-instrumentalists Musicians from Freiburg im Breisgau