Issa El-Saieh

Issa Joseph El-Saieh (February 22, 1919 – February 2, 2005), also known as Maestro, was a Haitian saxophonist, clarinetist, bandleader, composer, arranger, businessman, gallerist and art collector of Palestinian descent. Throughout his life and work he contributed to two facets of Haitian culture: music as well as art. From 1941 to the mid 1950s, as a musician, composer, arranger and bandleader of the Orchestre Saieh. In parallel to his music career, he began buying and collecting Haitian art. By the late 1950s, he founded the Galerie Issa, through which he promoted Haitian art and culture abroad. He died in Port-au-Prince from esophageal cancer on February 2, 2005, at the age of 85. Early life and education Issa El-Saieh was born in Petit-Goâve, Haiti, on February 22, 1919. Both his parents, Julia Moussa Talamas and Joseph Said El-Saieh, were Palestinian Christians who immigrated separately to Haiti from Bethlehem, Palestine. His mother, twice a widow, was a businesswoman who raised her three sons, Elias Noustas, Issa and André El-Saieh, between Petit-Goâve and Port-au-Prince. El-Saieh attended Saint-Louis de Gonzague in Port-au-Prince. In 1928, his younger brother André and him w