Waseem Kotoub, MD
Dr. Kotoub was born in the UK and received most of his musical education from Vladimir Zaretisky. He has already gained a solid pianistic experience at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Diana Ketler and Colin Stone, which he graduated from with merit and got his PGdip in piano performance and the LRAM in music teaching. He has participated in several master classes with eminent musicians such as Imre Rohman, Christopher Elton, Victor Bunin, Paskal Nimorofski and Petras Guiniasis. As a special prize winner oftheIBLA piano competition in Italy,andfirst prize winner of the KRSF competition,he has been playing with several orchestras such as Brandenburg National Orchestra under the baton of many conductors such as Solhi Al-Wadi, Ahmad Al-Saiedi (director of the Egyptian Opera House), and Sebastian Wiegle. Hehasappeared in various countries such as the UK, Hungary, Italy, Germany, Lebanon, Oman, Japan and Jordan. His first recording, Last of Ommyads,was released in 2008, recording Walid's Hajjar contemporary piano works. His specialties includeclassical, folk, latin and oriental music. His second CD was launched in 2015 under the name Healing Tunes.
Waseem is a medical doctor who merges medicine and musicby using music therapywith autistic children and those with other other conditions as a means of communicating and aiding the development of other skills. In 2007, he established the first music therapy centre in the MENA region, whichattracted attention from international media and TV channels. Waseem has givenseveral talks and interviews about music therapy and made television and radio appearances onthe DW news channel, the Polska Cultural channel, Aljazeera TV, Al-Arabiya TV, German national radio Channel 3 and American NPR radio channel,amongst others. He has a master’s degree in health systems and hospital management from Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. His strong management background allowed him to act as director of several festivals and head the programs and partnerships department at the British Council.