Wissam Boustany’s passionate musicality has helped him forge a unique reputation as an international flute soloist. His charismatic stage presence brings tremendous power and subtlety to a wide range of musical genres ranging from baroque, classical, romantic, contemporary and jazz settings. Imaginative programming often mixes the innovative with the traditional, captivating audiences with an engaging style that combines an improvisatory flair with a wide emotional and expressive range, and an acute sense of tone color and nuance.
Wissam has developed a unique duo partnership with pianist Aleksander Szram. In 2015, they toured in Australia, Canada, USA, Holland, and Norway, leaving audiences consistently overwhelmed by the way they both perform from memory, bringing a completely heightened experience and intensity into their adventurous music-making.
Wissam regularly performs and teaches in a variety of contexts, facilitating the growth of young talent. He has created his own teaching method titled “A Method Called Love”, which has spread internationally, focusing on improvisation, memory, self-reliance and the development of the concept of Love as a powerful motivator, facilitator and teacher. He has been a long-standing flute professor at Trinity Laban, London, and the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester.
More recently, Wissam has ventured into composing. Audiences around the world have responded enthusiastically to the transparent textures he weaves into a profoundly instinctive Middle Eastern tonality. His two recent works “And the Wind Whispered” and “Broken Child” are available through Tetractys Publishing.
He has performed with some of the world’s leading conductors including Claudio Abbado, Ivan Fischer, Bramwell Tovey, John Elliot Gardiner, Roger Norrington, George Solti, Peter Szilvay, Lubnan Baalbaki, James Judd, Jordi Mora, Volodymyr Sirenko, Levon Parikian, Nicholas Cleobury, Martyn Brabbins, Varujan Kodjan, Clark Rundell, Jerzy Maksymiuk and Ludwig Carrasco. Prestigious orchestras Wissam has worked with include the BBC SSO, BBC Philharmonic, LSCO, State Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, Utrecht Chamber Orchestra, St Paul’s Sinfonia, Polish Chamber Orchestra, Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra, Cairo Opera Orchestra, Orquesta 5 de mayo, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra and Palestine National Orchestra. More recently he collaborated with the Kristiansand Symphony orchestra, as part of a three-year residency at University in Agder, Norway.
Collaborations with several composers have resulted in inspired new additions to the flute repertoire by: Bushra el-Turk, Houtaf Khoury, Yevhen Stankovych, Edward Gregson, David Sutton-Anderson, Alun Hoddinott, Tarek Younis, Paul Reade, Peter Cowdrey, Carl Witt, Pierre Thilloy, Paul Renan, Dai Fujikura, Michael Oliva, Beat Furrer, Simon Holt, Boghos Gelalian, Waleed Howrani, Marcel Khalife and Shaun Bracey. Please visit Curriculum Vitae page on Wissam’s website for further details.
Six solo CDs are currently available: Wandering Winds, Sounds from Within, Vivaldi’s Children, Mirror of Eternity and This Invisible World on the Nimbus Alliance label, and Edward Gregson’s Concerto Aztec Dances on the Chandos label.
Born in Lebanon, Wissam Boustany began his musical studies in Beirut with his stepfather. He moved to Britain in 1977, where he studied at Chetham's School of Music and the Royal Northern College of Music. During these years Wissam received numerous awards, notably the Silver Medal in the 1982 Madeira International Flute Competition and (in the same year) the woodwind prize in the Royal Overseas League Competition. He was also the Silver Medalist in the Shell/LSO Competition and won the 2nd prize in the woodwind section of the first 'BBC Young Musician of the Year'.
During his early professional career, Wissam was associated with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in the early 1980s, with whom he appeared as soloist on the award winning Deutsche Grammophon recording of 'Il Viaggio a Rheims'. In more recent years he has free-lanced with the Philharmonia Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra and Palestine National Orchestra.
Wissam’s experiences of the war in Lebanon have greatly influenced his outlook on both Life and Music, crystalizing into a burning intensity, commitment, deep sadness, and spirituality that find their wings in the sound of his flute. In 1995, he founded Towards Humanity, a multi-decade international initiative working with musicians and charities, helping communities who suffer from the tragedies of war. This project was inaugurated in February 1995 at the Royal Albert Hall, London; this was followed in 1997 by a knighthood by the Lebanese government (Chevalier de l’Ordre du Cèdre) in recognition of his music and peace work, and in 1998, he was presented with the Crystal Award at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Wissam’s experiences of the war in Lebanon have greatly influenced his outlook on both Life and Music, crystalizing into a burning intensity, commitment, deep sadness, and spirituality that find their wings in the sound of his flute. In 1995, he founded Towards Humanity, a multi-decade international initiative working with musicians and charities, helping communities who suffer from the tragedies of war. This project was inaugurated in February 1995 at the Royal Albert Hall, London; this was followed in 1997 by a knighthood by the Lebanese government (Chevalier de l’Ordre du Cèdre) in recognition of his music and peace work, and in 1998, he was presented with the Crystal Award at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Wissam plays on a Brannen Kingma-System flute, a cocus wood headjoint made by Tobias Mancke.