His music is a top-class highlight in the collections of numerous music lovers, true style icons for some. His concerts are magnificent, highly virtuosic, world music highlights of countless festivals and concert tours. After a long wait, his new album "The Flood and the Fate of the Fish" (enja records) has just been released. Rabih Abou-Khalil is a border crosser between worlds, from traditional Arabic music and European classical music to open jazz. Like a wanderer between cultures, the oud virtuoso and composer, who was born in Lebanon and now lives in France after a long stay in Germany, combines Arabic, European and American music into a highly intelligent melange, far away from any world music fashions. Unbiased, with an alert mind, a high level of playing and compositional competence and a good dose of humour, he succeeds in merging the often contrary worlds in an extraordinary way. He has also gathered around him big names from the world of jazz such as Charlie Mariano, Kenny Wheeler and Joachim Kühn, as well as classics: the Ensemble Modern, the Balanescu Quartet, the Kronos Quartet and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. His work is so successful that he was awarded the Jazz Award five times in one year; In 2002 he received an honorary certificate for the German Record Critics' Prize for his complete work. His complex compositions combine Arabic meters and scales as well as pronounced improvisations. The result is fresh music, fascinatingly complex, rousing virtuoso, highly sensual.

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