Jamey Haddad

Jamey George Haddad (born Cleveland, Ohio, United States, July 2, 1952) is an American percussionist working primarily in the fields of jazz and world music, and specializing in hand drums.

Biography

Haddad is of Lebanese ancestry. From the age of four, he began playing Lebanese percussion instruments, such as the goblet drum . He later studied music at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. He lived in New York City for over 20 years but in 2002 Jamey, daughter Georgia James Haddad and his wife Mary Kay Gray (associate dean of student academic affairs at Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music) relocated to Shaker Heights, Ohio. He currently teaches at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Haddad is also the Artistic Director of the Friday's@7 series at Cleveland's Severance Hall. This series features the Cleveland Orchestra and a secondary performance that feature many top shelf folk artists from around the world.

Music career

Haddad studied Carnatic music with Ramnad Raghavan for five years, then received a Fulbright Fellowship, which allowed him to study Indian drums, including the kanjira, in South India for one more year. Haddad is the 2010 recipient of the Cleveland arts prize. He has also received four National Endowment for the Arts fellowships to pursue jazz and international studies and collaborations. Haddad performed with Paul Simon when Paul was the first recipient in 2007 of a new prestigious award: the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.^[1] Haddad has collaborated and performed with Paul Simon since 1998. Others he has worked with include the Paul Winter Consort, Dave Liebman, Joe Lovano, Allen Farnham,^[2] Carly Simon, Betty Buckley, Rabih Abou-Khalil, Simon Shaheen, Marbin, Trichy Sankaran, Osvaldo Golijov, Nguyên Lê, Badi Assad, Steve Shehan, Esperanza Spalding, Elliot Goldenthal, Sergio and Odair Assad, Daniel Schnyder, Nancy Wilson, The Wayfaring Strangers, Steve Gadd and Laszlo Gardony. He appears on more than 150 recordings.

Haddad had been a professor at the Berklee College of Music 1992 to 2010 Since 2011 Haddad is a Full professor of performance and improvisation of percussion at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.^[3] He was appointed a faculty member at the Cleveland Institute of Music in 2005.^[4]

Drums & Percussions

• Yamaha Maple Fretboard Custom Drums
• Yamaha Cherry Sunburst Custom Drums
• Crescent Cymbals, Haptic Hand Cymbal, (developed by Haddad)
• Remo Drumsticks
• Latin Percussion

References

External links