Naseem Alatrash

Naseem Alatrash is a cellist, composer, and educator. Alatrash's tone as an instrumentalist has been described as "particularly lustrous" by the Chicago Tribune, and his performances include a mix of improvisation and traditional melodies with a focus on traditional Arabic music, contemporary classical music, and jazz.

While he tours performing his own music, Alatrash is also a member of multiple ensembles, including the Global Messengers with Grammy-winning pianist Danilo Pérez, the Grammy-winning string quartet Turtle Island Quartet, and the award-winning Amir ElSaffar's Rivers of Sound Orchestra. He has appeared at numerous international festivals, including the Newport Jazz Festival, the Dominican Republic Jazz Festival, the Panama Jazz Festival, the Abu Dhabi Music Festival, Lebanon’s Zouk Mikael International and Beit Aldeen festivals, and Jerash Festival to name a few. He has performed at such notable venues as the Kennedy Center, the Lincoln Center, the NYU Abu Dhabi Arts Center, the Royal Opera of Oman, the Royal Albert Hall, and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, among many others. He has performed alongside world-renowned musicians, including Roger Waters, Terri Lyne Carrington, Steve Vai, Simon Shaheen, Alejandro Sanz, Carmine Rojas of David Bowie, and many others.

As an educator, Alatrash is the director of the Arab Music Ensemble at Tufts University in Massachusetts and the director of the Global Folk Traditions Ensemble at Longy School of music. He has also given numerous workshops around the world.

Alatrash was named a 2021 Music Composition Fellow by the Massachusetts Cultural Council for his exceptional composition work. Alatrash received grants from the Boston Foundation Live Arts Boston and the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, and has received international acclaim from global media for his musical arrangement/production of a cover of the Beatles song “Drive My Car.” The cover song was a collaboration with Public Radio International’s radio show The World and Berklee, and he arranged/adapted the Beatles song with an Arabic twist. Alatrash has been awarded String Player of the Year twice from the National Music Competition of Palestine.