John Kameel Farah is a Toronto–based composer and pianist. He studied composition and piano performance at the University of Toronto, where he received the Glenn Gould Composition Award twice during his studies. In 1999 he had private lessons with Terry Riley in California, and later at the Arabic Music Retreat in Hartford. In 1998, he performed the complete solo piano works of Arnold Schoenberg in Toronto. Toronto’s NOW Magazine named his as Best Pianist 2006. John received the 2011 K.M. Hunter Artist Award for Music from the Ontario Arts Council.
Farah now focuses primarily on his own creative hybrid of improvisation, composition and electronic music. Simultaneously using piano, synthesizer, computer, and at times harpsichord, his solo performances exist somewhere between the concert hall and an experimental DJ set, mixing forays into free improvisation, jazz, electro–acoustics, middle-eastern modes, and ambient minimalism and distilling them into cohesive, surrealistic structures.
Farah performs regularly in his native Toronto, and has toured internationally across the U.K., Europe, USA, Canada, the Middle–East, Brazil, South Korea and Mexico. In 1999 and 2002, he visited the Edward Said National Conservatory in the West Bank, giving performances and masterclasses in Ramallah, East Jerusalem and Bethlehem. His last solo CD, “Unfolding†was released on Dross:tik Records in 2009, and his next album will be released in 2012.
John is very pleased to be the pianist for Peggy Baker Dance Projects, and is currently the Composer-in-Residence for SoundMakers, hosted by new music organization SoundStreams. He is managed by Annette Gentz Music Arts, based in Berlin, Germany.