WMI Plus At Home - Rahim AlHaj and Derek Gripper
**THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED**
WMI PLUS At Home experiences bring music from around the world into the comfort of your home. Renowned artists share their lives, instruments, and stories from their personal environments, bringing an intimacy and uniqueness to each event. These talks are led by fellow musicians, journalists, and ethnomusicologists. Live captioning will be provided during the event.
We are thrilled to provide these events for FREE. If you are able to make a donation of any amount while registering for this event, it will help us to keep the music playing. THANK YOU!
Monday, June 16, 2025 – 6 PM EST
Link to NY Guitar Festival Show – Thu, June 26
WMI Plus At Home Experiences are free of charge, but you must register to reserve your space. You will receive an order confirmation once your registration is complete that includes the link to the event. Only registered participants will receive email instructions on how to join the event via Zoom online. Bring your questions! The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session with attendees posting their questions electronically for live answers.
Just ahead of their performance at this year’s New York Guitar Festival, oud virtuoso Rahim AlHaj and guitar master Derek Gripper join us for a WMI Plus At Home session to discuss their first collaboration together.
Rahim AlHaj, a virtuoso oud musician from Baghdad, Iraq, began playing the oud at age nine and displayed exceptional talent early on. He studied under renowned musicians Munir Bashir and Salim Abdul Kareem at the Institute of Music in Baghdad, graduating in 1990 with a diploma in composition and a degree in Arabic Literature. After leaving Iraq in 1991 due to activism against the Saddam Hussein regime, he lived in Jordan and Syria before moving to the US in 2000 as a political refugee. In 2015, he received the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship, the highest honor for traditional arts in the USA.
Derek Gripper is a renowned South African guitarist known for transcribing and recording works of the West African kora, creating the first African repertoire for classical guitar. He has collaborated with notable West African musicians, including kora masters Toumani Diabaté and Ballaké Sissoko, and Desert Blues pioneer Ali Farka Touré. His transformative journey began with the album One Night on Earth: Music From the Strings of Mali, which demonstrated his ability to adapt kora music to guitar. Gripper has sold over 30 million albums globally and won two Grammy Awards.