Amir Elsaffar
Amir ElSaffar is an Iraqi-American composer, trumpeter, santur player, and vocalist working at the intersections between jazz, Western classical, and Maqam music of Iraq and the Middle East. An expert jazz trumpeter with a classical background, ElSaffar has created techniques to play microtones and ornaments idiomatic to Arabic music that are not typically heard on the trumpet. He is also one of the few musicians in his generation to master the centuries-old Iraqi maqam tradition, which he performs actively as a vocalist and santur (Iraqi hammered dulcimer) player. As a composer, ElSaffar has created a unique microtonal harmonic language that merges the Arabic maqam modal system with contemporary Western harmony.
