Issa Hassan

Issa's story began long time ago, in a small village in Turkish Kurdistan, when his grand-parents took the road to exile, to a country which, at the time, represented a degree of safety: Lebanon. About thirty years later, someone was born there who is becoming one of the Masters of the bouzouk and one of those Eastern musicians whose contact with other musical horizons make it possible to look forward enthusiastically to what the century present will offer. Because Issa has become a Parisian and gives us the pleasure of hearing a music both rooted in Kurdish culture and impregnated with the les saveurs and scents of his travels. His playing shows virtuosity together with the originality one expects from a great musician and the broadminded spirit and musical humour that his fluency in the modal system of the Eastern music allows. But, whether he plays with jazz men or flamenquistes, he is never separated from what constitutes the heart very heart of his music: the Kurdish soul. With his bouzouk he has crossed the world and sung in places as varied as the Institute of the Arab World, the Wild Cabaret, the festivals of Ris Orangis or of Médina of Tunis, Jerusalem or Kensington Town Hall in London. Today, as cultural consultant of the Paris Kurdish Institute Foundation, Issa is as enthusiastic about traditional as by contemporary Kurdish artistic expression.