Rami Khalifé was born in Beirut, Lebanon, on September 25, 1981. From very early on, Rami Khalifé exhibited a passion for music.
After a short initiation on the piano, he left Lebanon when he was seven years old and resumed his musical training in France at the Conservatoire National de Région de Boulogne-Billancourt, studying with Louis-Claude Thirion and Marie-Paule Siruguet.
Ten years later, he was awarded first place on piano and received several degrees in musical theory. Along with his training at the conservatory, he studied piano with the noted Lebanese pianist, Abd El Rahman El Bacha.
Khalifé received several prizes during those years in Paris, most notable amongst them were the piano competitions of Radio France, the UFAM and Claude Kahn, thanks to which he was able to perform at the Gaveau Music Hall in 1994.
On a tour of the Middle East with the Boulogne-Billancourt Orchestra, Rami Khalifé performed the Rachmaninov piano concerto No. 4 and Ravel's piano concerto in G.
From 2000 to 2003, Rami Khalifé pursued his higher education at the Julliard School of Music in New York. He studied piano under the Hungarian pianist, Gyorgy Sandor, who studied with Bela Bartok. He Graduated from Julliard in May 2003.
Since 2000, Rami has been touring with Lebanese composer and master oud player Marcel Khalifé in performances around the world.
He has given many solo and duo concerts. Together with the clarinetist Kinan Azmeh, they have performed in the Middle East, the United States, performing classical and improvised repertoire.
Rami Khalife also toured in Brazil performing with Brazilian cellist Fabio Presgrave.
Khalifé's open mindedness and musical richness led him to jazz and new music where he discovered an innate talent for improvisation.
With Francesco Schlimé, he gave several improvisational concerts for two pianos, one of which was the first of its kind in the history of the Julliard School of Music. In 2005, Rami Khalife & Francesco Schlime founded the group Aufgang composed of duo piano and a computer performing their own original compositions of new, modern and experimental music.
He has so far released two albums. The first is a double CD "Live in Beirut" in 2001which is primarily a solo piano interpretation of the classical repertoire. The second is "Scene from Hellek", a solo piano of new music that are all his own original compositions.
His future works will include the release of a collaborative CD with the Russian Globalis Orchestra based in Moscow performing the 5th piano concerto of Serge Prokofiev and the 1st piano concerto of Lebanese composer Abdalah Masri. Khalife is currently working on the score for a film by Lebanese filmmaker Wael Noureddine. Khalife has developed the passion for composing music for movies, documentary films and dance
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