Joseph Tawadros

Joseph Tawadros
Tawadros at the 2014 ARIA Music Awards, Sydney, November 26th, 2014
Background information
Born	1983 (age 33–34)
Origin	Cairo, Egypt
Genres	jazz, World music, Classical
Occupation(s)	musician/composer
Instruments	oud,
Years active	1995—present
Website	josephtawadros.com

Joseph Tawadros AM (born 1983 in Cairo, Egypt) is a Coptic Egyptian Australian oud virtuoso. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2012 he won Best World Music Album for Concerto of the Greater Sea, he won the same category in 2013 for Chameleons of the White Shadow and in 2014 for Permission to Evaporate.

His family emigrated from Egypt to Australia when he was three. Initially attracted to the trumpet, he decided to learn oud when he was eight, after seeing a movie about Egypt's famous musicien, Sayed Darwish. He is classically trained, having completed a bachelor of music at the University of New South Wales, where he was awarded a Freedman Fellowship for Classical Music. In the 2000s, he also studied in Egypt with violin player Esawi Dagher, son of the legendary violin player Abdo Dagher. During the years that followed, he spent three months a year in Egypt and learned to play other instruments: the bamboo flute nay, the Arabic zither qanun and the cello. He won the Australian Recording Industry Award in 2012 for the Best World Music Album. He had been nominated nine times before, without winning. He won it again in 2013 and 2014.

Joseph Tawadros’style is described as very eclectic. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, "he has taken the oud out of its traditional Middle Eastern setting and into the realm of classical music and jazz". "I don't like to play in a particulare genre, I love all sorts of music", Tawadros explains. "I try to record an album a year and one that's totally different from the previous album". He has collaborated with musicians such as John Abercrombie, Jack DeJohnette, Roy Ayers, Bela Fleck, Joey DeFrancesco, the Australian Chamber Orchestra and The Academy of Ancient Music.