From Chaldean to Classical!

Join UC San Diego for our Intersections Concert series at Park & Market in The Guggenheim Theatre. 

Luay Yousif was born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1979. As a student at the Institute for Artistic Studies, he studied violin and earned a Diploma of Art with honors. He also studied music at the College of Performing Arts, until he left Iraq in 2004

Yousif was a member of the famed Iraqi Symphony Orchestra for four years, during which he studied violin with Professor Fouad Ritha AlSadan. In 2003 the orchestra traveled to Washington D.C. where he performed with the world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Yousif was a member of the Iraqi Choral Choir of the Iraqi Ministry of Education and also a member of the Association of Iraqi Artists.

Fred Benedetti was born in Sasebo, Japan, and began playing the guitar at the age of 9.

Equally at home playing classical music or contemporary music, he records on the SBE label and Domo Records with five noted ensembles: Camarada (chamber ensemble), Keltik Kharma (a celtic band), The Odeum Guitar Duo, given the honor by the magazine, Acoustic Guitar, as being one of the ten best independently produced guitar CDs for the year 2000, "Blurring the Edges" a recipient of the 1994 San Diego Music Awards "Best Pop-Jazz" album of the year featuring jazz musicians Peter,Tripp, and Hall Sprague, and the acclaimed Benedetti/Svoboda Guitar Duo.

Hosted by UC San Diego and New York-based violinist Yale Strom, one of the world's leading ethnographer-artists of klezmer and Romani music and history.