Joelle Khoury

Joelle Khoury is a Lebanese-American pianist and composer of jazz and contemporary classical music. Background Born in Beirut, Joelle Khoury left Lebanon for the United States after the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War. She obtained a degree in Economics and Musicology at George Mason University in Virginia. Returning to Lebanon several years later, she received a master’s degree in philosophy from Saint Joseph University and a piano diploma from the Lebanese Higher Conservatory of Music. She has been invited on Extra-muros residencies in France (2002 and 2004), the Czech Republic (2006), Switzerland (2011, through Pro Helvetia) and the United States (2013) as a MacDowell Colony fellow, where she worked on her multimedia performance Palais de femmes. For almost two decades, she has composed contemporary classical music pieces and concertos for chamber and philharmonic orchestras, as well as pieces for her own jazz quintet. Her idea of composition, not restricted to specific standard styles, eras, geographical spaces or music categories stricto sensu, led her toward contemporary music within complex jazz forms and non-traditional classical music structures. Rather than “orientali