Date:
Location:
The Mishael & Lillie Naby Assyrian Lecture Fund and CMES
present
Abboud Zeitoune
Assyrian music specialist; author of Music Pearls of Beth-Nahrin, an Assyrian/Syriac Discography (2007), Modern Assyrian Music (2015), Music Heritage of Mesopotamia (2016)
Born in Qamishli, Syria in 1970, and in 1975 Abboud Zeitoune moved with his family to Lebanon as his father was working in Beirut, and enrolled at the “Taw Mim Simkat” High School, and there he learned to read and write Syriac. Because of the Lebanese civil war the family was forced to immigrate to Germany in 1984. In Germany he continued his studies and graduated from University of Trade and Economics in 1996, and he now works in an international company as Compliance Manager. Zeitoune worked in the Assyrian national field and became a member of many organizations in Germany, including the Assyrian Beth-Nahrin culture and sport association in Wiesbaden, and his long membership in the Assyrian Democratic Organization. From 1987 Zeitoune took part in regular activities, like festivals, lectures and meetings of the Assyrian Beth-Nahrin association in Wiesbaden. There he was responsible for several tasks (such as leader of youth group and university graduates group). He was elected as chairman of this association for 3 periods (2000-2001 and 2008-2012). Since 2008 he is also chairman of the Mor Afrem Foundation (established by Dr. Samir Afram), which is a charity organization and support Assyrian project around the world.
Zeitoune has edited and published many articles in known Assyrian magazines in Europe like, Shrogo, Shemsho and Funoyo Magazines. He became interested in Assyrian music from an early age, and embarked in a project to collect all the known Assyrian music records, and that work resulted in him publishing the first Assyrian Music Discography book in Germany in 2007, Music Pearls of Beth-Nahrin, an Assyrian/Syriac Discography. Since then he has given many lectures on the history and heritage of Assyrian music in Germany and outside. He was twice a member of the committee to judge the Syriac Music Awards ceremony in Sweden and Switzerland. Zeitoune has produced in cooperation with SuroyoTV (a Sweden based Assyrian channel) in 2012/13 a 22-part series where he introduces the chronology of modern Assyrian music to the viewers (https://bit.ly/2MlSGen). Other recent articles include: Abboud Zeitoune commentary on Mesopotamian Night (2010), and A short timeline of modern Assyrian choirs (2016).
In his second work Modern Assyrian Music (Tigris Press, 2015), he completed missed issues from his first book. So both books represent now the whole discography of Assyrian Music of the last 100 years. Additionally, he owns the largest digital and material collection of Assyrian music records worldwide. In 2016 he worked in cooperation with the Assyrian Youth Association of Germany (AJM) on a third book Music Heritage of Mesopotamia, a song book containing the lyrics and mp3-files on DVD of 145 selected songs in eastern and western Assyrian. For more information, Zeitoune has a Youtube channel: https://bit.ly/2p0MI9e and a personal website: www.abboudzeitoune.com.
Co-sponsors: Mishael & Lillie Naby Assyrian Lecture Fund (NELC), Center for Middle Eastern Studies
Contact: Liz Flanagan