Kareem Roustom

Kareem Roustom (Arabic: كريم رستم) is a Syrian-American composer, music director, and university teacher, noted mainly for his compositions of contemporary classical music, film scores and his collaboration with pop music artists. Among other musical ensembles, his compositions have been performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and at festivals in the U.S., the Middle East and in Europe. Roustom was born in Damascus to an American mother and a Syrian father and moved with his family to the U.S. as a teenager. He first attended the Northeastern University program in electrical engineering in 1989 and later earned a Bachelor of Arts in Music Business and Music Performance from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell in 1993. From 2004 to 2006, Roustom continued with an M.A. in Ethnomusicology and Composition at Tufts University. His thesis dealt with oud improvisations of notable Egyptian composer and musician Riad Al Sunbati.Since September 2017, Roustom is Professor of the Practice at the music department of Tufts University, School of Arts and Sciences, where he teaches orchestration, music notation, Music of the Middle East and composition for film. He is also director of the university's Arabic Music Ensemble.