Rabih Abou-Khalil (Arabic: ربيع أبو خليل‎, born August 17, 1957) is an oud player and composer born in Lebanon, who combines elements of Arabic music with jazz, classical music, and other styles. He grew up in Beirut and moved to Munich, Germany, during the Lebanese Civil War in 1978.

Abou-Khalil studied the oud at the Beirut conservatory with oudist Georges Farah. After moving to Germany, he studied classical flute at the Academy of Music in Munich under Walther Theurer.

In his compositions and live concerts, he combines elements of Arabic music with jazz, rock, or classical music, and has earned praise as “a world musician years before the phrase became a label”. — According to a review of his concert in The Guardian of 2002, Abou-Khalil “makes the hot, staccato Middle Eastern flavour and the seamless grooves of jazz mingle, as if they were always meant to.”

In a review of his 2007 album Songs For Sad Women, the BBC wrote “the characteristic blend of jazz-inflected Arabic melody with subtle rhythms combines into a hypnotic whole, as ever with Abou-Khalil’s fluent oud playing in a central role.”

Along with Tunisian oud virtuosos Anouar Brahem and Dhafer Youssef, he has helped establish the oud as an important instrument of Ethno jazz and world fusion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_rZIktJy8s