Composing
Wissam writes:
Music has been a journey that has consistently led me to totally unexpected places, often far more powerful and rewarding than my original ambitions were.
In my late twenties, I discovered improvisation alone in my practice room…ten minutes, which opened up a world beyond my wildest dreams….I felt reborn as a musician and found the umbilical cord between myself, my instrument and music. I soon started to include improvisations in my performances and the response was overwhelmingly consistent: people often told me that my improvisations were the highlight of the concert!
These many years of free improvisation finally ripened into my first piece in 2009, And The Wind Whispered, followed in 2014 by my flute/piano piece, Broken Child. While my main creative output will continue to focus on my performing and teaching, I intend to write at least one piece a year from now on (depending on what ideas come to the surface), as I find the process of composing deeply satisfying, liberating and empowering.
As flute players, our creative life is forever bound in the air we breathe and blow – this wonderful invisible resource that is the foundation of our Art. I first performed “And The Wind Whispered” in Botswana and Zimbabwe in February 2009, but it took until 2011 until it was written down. Taking its inspiration from the wind, “And The Wind Whispered” seeks to make a statement about our fractured world. I have always been very weary of organised nationalism, religion and politics because they fragment and diminish our humanity. At one point in my piece, the flute player says “and the wind never shows its passport, when it crosses the border”.
Sit back and let the wind take you on a journey of its own choosing. This piece carries a wish with it – that humanity can one day rid itself from its self-imposed spiritual prisons.
You can purchase the sheet music for “And The Wind Whispered” from
Tetractys Publishing
"... Boustany’s own work, And the Wind Whispered, speaks of borders and the wind with flashes of musical colors and spoken language. As with all the other pieces on this two-disc set, Boustany brings out every nuance to perfection..."
FANFARE MAGAZINE, Issue 40:4 (Mar/Apr 2017), Maria Nokin
Broken Child
During the summer of 2014 the city of Gaza was bombed…again.
I watched helplessly, along with the rest of the world,
As horrific footage of broken children
Flooded into our lives.
Something broke inside me and I had to say something.
We must stop justifying the unjustifiable. When will this savagery end?
This is happening in many parts of the world these days,
not just in Gaza - and it is ALL wrong.
Broken Child is NOT a political piece trying to take sides….
if the vicious cycle of pain and violence is to stop,
truth and compassion need to be embraced
by us all, above all else.
May Love Prevail one Day
You can purchase the sheet music for “Broken Child” from
Tetractys Publishing