Hadi Eldebek

Artist, Brainstormer, Consultant, Educator/Teacher, Entrepreneur, Explorer, Idea generator, Musician, Performer, Project manager, Social entrepreneur, Startup, World traveler

Hadi Eldebek is a musician, educator, and cultural entrepreneur currently based in New York City. As a musician… Hadi collaborates with creative musicians from around the world in performing music from contemporary and multi-ethnic perspectives; African, Chinese, Greek, Indian, Japanese, Turkish, and more. He attended the Lebanese National Conservatory in Beirut before moving to New York in 2005 to continue his studies in Oud Performance and Arabic Music with master Oud and Violin player, Simon Shaheen. In 2013, Hadi expanded his musical ventures by joining the Brooklyn Philharmonic as composer for the Outside-In Fellowship, studying Composition Theory with Randy Woolf. This collaboration resulted in a work for Oud and String Quartet called Istimrar, which was performed on August 3rd, 2014 at the Farkas Theater, Harvard University, with Yo-Yo Ma on Cello, Colin Jacobsen on Violin I, Johnny Gandelsman on Violin II, and Nick Cords on Viola. In June 2014, he toured in China for the first time presenting traditional Arabic music as well as collaborating with local Chinese musicians on multiple creative projects, including a documentary focused on the ancient Tea and Horse Road. Since then, Hadi has been invited back to China in both 2015 and 2016 to perform, record, teach and organize workshops for the local and global audience. As an educator… In parallel with performance and composition, Hadi is an active educator and panelist. In 2009, he began his collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road project as a Teaching Artist for The Silk Road Connect, an approach to teaching that targets upper elementary and middle school students in low-resourced communities, where students are least likely to have access to the transformative power of the arts. From there, he joined the Silk Road Ensemble as a performing member and the lead faculty member teaching Arabic Music at the Global Musician Workshop hosted so far at DePauw University and Tangelwood Music Center. Over the last four years, Hadi has participated as faculty in the Harvard Graduate School of Education workshop, Arts and Passion-Drive Learning, co-leading workshops entitled Grooves, Modes, and Meters (2016), Traditions of the Middle East (2014-2015), and Percussive Poetry (2013). In 2014, Hadi has presented two seminars about the Transformative Power of Education at the EdLab at Columbia’s Teachers College, and in the following year, Hadi participated as a panelist on the Cultural Navigation series at Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study. In 2015, he led and helped organize the first World Music and Dance Workshop in Yunnan province, China, with 6 faculty members and 16 students participating from around the world. As a cultural entrepreneur… Hadi is currently building two cultural startups, GrantPA -an online platform that matches artists with grants and funding opportunities- and Circle World Arts -a global network of world arts workshops that connects artists, audiences, and institutions together. Both projects were selected by TED Conferences as breakthrough ideas to join its 2016 TED Residency Incubator. He is also the artistic director of Brooklyn Nomads, a collective of over 15 musicians of various musical and ethnic backgrounds presenting a repertoire from different parts of the world. In addition to his musical education, Hadi holds a double major degree in Chemistry and Mathematics from the College of Staten Island, City University of New York, as well as supplemental studies in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering from Columbia University.

Arts, cultures, education, self-growth.

Grantpa is an online platform that connects artists and organizations with funding and development opportunities.

Culture, Education, Entrepreneurship, Music