Bouchaib Abdelhadi, a native of Casablanca,

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria t ...

, has had a distinguished musical career on both sides of the

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...

. As leader of the Orchestre Abdelhadi, he performed throughout the Kingdom of Morocco in the 1980s. Since coming to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

in the early 1990s, Abdelhadi has been much sought out as a multi-instrumentalist (

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 , ...

, Moroccan

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

) and as a

vocalist Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...

in Middle Eastern and

North African North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in t ...

traditions such as ''al-Ÿqa'' ( Andalusian), ''Gnawa'' ( Sufi trance), and ''Chaabi'' ("popular").

Career

Career highlights include collaborating with Pharoah Sanders and others on music for

Alonzo King LINES Ballet The Alonzo King LINES Ballet (AKLB) is an American contemporary ballet company based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The ballet company, founded by choreographer Alonzo King, premiered at San Francisco State University's McKenna Theatre in 1982. ...

Company, and, in 2001, contributing to Omar Sosa's Grammy-nominated CD ''Sentir''. Abdelhadi's live performances range from a US tour with Cuban jazz pianist Omar Sosa in 2002 to performances with Stephen Kent and

Trance Mission Trance Mission is a world fusion ensemble co-founded in San Francisco by American clarinetist and composer Beth Custer and British-born didgeridoo player Stephen Kent in 1992, with Canadian musician Kenneth Newby and American percussionist J ...

in 2001 and 2007, and from playing at the 1998 San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival to composing and performing ''Heart Song'' in conjunction with Alonzo King and the

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT) is a modern dance company based in New York City. It was founded in 1958 by choreographer and dancer Alvin Ailey. It is made up of 32 dancers, led by artistic director Robert Battle and associate ...

in 2004. His collaborations with Alonzo King also include ''Salt'' (2005) with the North Carolina Dance Theater, and ''Ocean'' (1994) and ''The Moroccan Project'' (2005) with LINES Ballet. Abdelhadi played with DJ Chebi Sabbah on the album ''La Kahena'', and enjoys working with artists from diverse musical traditions such as klezmer, Hindustani,

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

, and

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

References

Living people Musicians from Casablanca Year of birth missing (living people) Moroccan emigrants to the United States {{Africa-musician-stub