Waleed Howrani (b.1948)

Born in 1948 in New York, but raised in Lebanon, Waleed Howrani is to this day one of the most internationally successful piano virtuosos from the Middle East. After beginning his studies at the Beirut Conservatory he continued studying in Moscow—an arrangement enabled by Aram Khachaturian—where he was a pupil of Emil Gilels, among others. Successes in competitions such as the International Tchaikovsky Competition of 1966 and the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels in 1968 paved the way for an international career. But when Howrani, in his mid-thirties and now back in the US, fell seriously ill, he decided to make an old childhood dream reality and—under the guidance of William Albright—‘to take lessons in composition before it was too late’.