Muhammad Sabsabi

about

Beirut-based and conservatory-trained, Sabsabi was among Lebanon’s leading mid-20th-century qanun virtuosi and teachers. Arabic-language sources tied to the Beirut Heritage archive state he was born 1927 and died 2011; they also note he became the first Lebanese student to graduate from the National Conservatory (1948), then served as qanun soloist for Radio Lebanon and taught at the conservatory, with a cohort of notable pupils (e.g., Jamal Sinno, later active in the U.S.). His best-documented commercial release is the LP Cithare Classique au Liban – Qanun (Pathé-Marconi/EMI, Arabesques series, 1974), a suite of maqām-based taqāsīm (e.g., Rast, Bayātī, Nahāwand, Saba, Kurdī). Multiple retailers and discographies carry this pressing under the variant credit “Muhammad Sabsadi,” but the Arabic sources and broadcast tapes confirm the artist as Muhammad Sabsabi. Surviving radio transfers (c. 1975, Radio Lebanon) circulate online and showcase his poised rubato, crystalline tremolo and ornament—hallmarks of the classical Levantine qanun school. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.

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