Program Notes: Omar Offendum with Oud Virtuoso Ronnie Malley

January 28, 2023 |

PROGRAM INFORMATION

Omar Offendum
with Oud Virtuoso Ronnie Malley

Friday, January 28, 2023 | 7:00 PM
The Studio

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PROGRAM SUBJECT TO CHANGE. Please be considerate of others and turn off all phones and watch alarms. Photography and recording of any kind are not permitted. Thank you.

About the Program

Fresh off the heels of three sold out shows at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and over a dozen high-profile performances at the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar, Omar Offendum brings his love for hip-hop and Arabic poetry to Stanford Live for two back-to-back concert events. Joined by Chicago-based oud virtuoso Ronnie Malley, these multi-talented musicians offer a unique perspective on Arab-American artistic expression that is both forward-thinking and firmly rooted in the time-honored traditions of their respective homelands of Syria and Palestine.

Biographies

Omar Offendum
Omar Offendum is a Syrian-American rapper/spoken word artist. Known for his unique blend of hip-hop and Arabic poetry, he’s been featured on prominent world news outlets (Aljazeera, BBC, PBS, LA Times), lectured at a number of prestigious academic institutions (Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Northwestern, UT-Austin, UCLA, SOAS, American University of Beirut), collaborated with major museums and cultural organizations (LACMA / Penn Museum / Ithra / Shangri-La / Arab-American National Museum, Museum of Islamic Art in Doha), and helped raise millions of dollars for various humanitarian relief groups (Islamic Relief, Karam Foundation, Syrian-American Medical Society). Offendum was recently named a Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Fellow, an Arab America Foundation "40 Under 40" award recipient, and a member of both the Pillars Fund cohort for Muslim Narrative Change & the RaceForward Butterfly Lab cohort for Immigrant Narrative Strategy. His latest performance engagements include five sold out showings of his new "Little Syria" musical in NYC (Brooklyn Academy of Music & HERE Arts Center), as well as twenty unforgettable concerts during the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar. He currently resides in the great state of New York with his wife and two little children, while daydreaming about the jasmine tree-lined streets of Damascus.

Instagram: @offendum

Ronnie Malley
Ronnie Malley is a Palestinian-American multi-instrumentalist musician, actor, composer, sound designer, producer, playwright, and educator. Recent theatre credits include: Scenes From 73 Years sound design (Medina Theatre Collective), The Shroudmaker musician (Medina Theatre Collective), The Band’s Visit actor/musician/Arabic dialect coach (North American Tour), American Griot co-author/composer (MVCC/Silk Road Rising | Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Award 2020), Macbeth Hecate/musician (Chicago Shakespeare Theatre), Great Expectations composer/sound designer (Silk Road Rising/Remy Bumppo | Jeff Nominated for Best Original Music), Ziryab, The Songbird of Andalusia author/solo performer (Silk Road Rising), The Jungle Book musician/consultant (Goodman, Huntington Theatres), The White Snake co-composer/musician (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), The Sultan’s Dilemma actor/composer/associate producer (International Voices Project), Arabian Nights musician (Goodman, Arena Stage, Berkeley Rep Theatres).

Ronnie has a BA in Global Music Studies from DePaul University and is currently pursuing a graduate degree in Linguistics at the University of Chicago. He is a teaching artist with Chicago Public Schools, an artist researcher with Chicago Arts Partnership in Education, and a guest lecturer at universities. Ronnie is an international artist and has performed with the music groups Allos Musica, Apollo’s Fire, Diwan Al-Han, EMME, Lamajamal, Mucca Pazza, Newberry Consort, Surabhi Ensemble, the Toronto Chamber Choir, and the University of Chicago Middle East Music Ensemble. Ronnie is a member of Actors Equity Association and the American Federation of Musicians.

Instagram: @ronniemalley