Born in Rafah, in the Gaza Strip of Palestine, Moneim Adwan began to sing Palestinian traditional songs and prayers of the Prophet Mohamed in his childhood (tajwîd). At 17 years old he starts lute and study to the University of Tripoli (Libya) where he obtained a Master Degree in musicology with Professor Fateh El-Ramiz (song) and Abdallah Sabai (luth). With the tradition of both popular and classical art music as an heritage, Moneim Adwan compose on classic or modern poems written by Palestinians and Arabic writers. His compositions are an attempt to keep the tradition alive in a country which wavers between modernism and ancestral traditions. This singer's warm voice, sometimes powerful and sometimes tender, is the most beautiful instrument to convey a human, love and tolerant message in the midst of war and destruction.

 

 

Since 1994, he participated to various events organized by the Palestinian Ministry of Education. His career being very international, he continuously gives concerts on various Europeans and Mediterranean stages. He made at many occasions a duet organ and ‘ûd with Bernard Foccroulle, a duet with Françoise Atlan where Jewish music meets Palestinian one, with Jean-Marc Aymes (Concerto Soave) in a project which has toured all over Europe and with Erik Truffak in Paris mythical Olympia concert hall. In 2012 and 2013, he celebrated the Arabic Spring through various concerts in Jordan, Syria and Egypt and performed in 2014 at the Arab World Institute of Paris. Since 2013, he is regularly touring with Sophie Vander Eyden (luth) and Clare Wikinson (voice) in a project called Divine Madness mixing his own compositions to baroque music. A CD of this project has been released. His last CD, Jasmin, gathers his composition on Mahmoud Darwich’s poems and is one of his favorite current programs.

 

 

Being in residency at Festival d’Aix-en-Provence since 2009, he gave there numerous concerts and founded a multicultural amateur choir, Ibn Zaydoun, with whom he works on a broad Arabic repertory. This choir being very popular, he founded a second one in Marseille and then a third one near Montpellier (Zeryab). The Festival d’Aix-en-Provence has produced a first recording with Ibn Zaydoun.

He currently works with stage director Olivier Letellier on an opera commissioned by the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence for 2016 and based on the Kalila wa Dimna famous legend. They previously made a first project together: The Dove, the Fox and the Heron, which has been presented in May 2014 in Aix-en-Provence.