Abdessamad Mason Zantow

Abdessamad Mason Zantow is a performer on the oud, lâvta (Istanbul lute) and buzuq (Arab bouzouki) as well as a singer of Muwashshah (Arabo-Andalusian secular and Sufi love poetry) and Turkish ilahi (Sufi songs) and other works from the Ottoman classical tradition. After forming several musical projects spanning from popular genres to the avant-garde, he eventually traveled to Varanasi, India where he studied Hindustani classical music and Qawwali. He has a BA in Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin. He has had many formative music teachers including his late Uncle Thomas Zantow, Eric Ederer, Evgenios Voulgaris and most recently Ustadh Khaled Alhafez who is a master performer of the Muwashshah from Aleppo, Syria.