The Galilee Quartet (The Saad family) is a quartet combining 4 siblings: Omar, Mostafa, Tibah, and Gandhi. Founded in their home in Maghar - Galilee, resulting in the name of the quartet which was their father Zaher’s idea. The siblings played music together from 2012 until the end of 2013, when they got separated for the first time as a result of Omar’s imprisonment for refusing to serve in the Israeli occupation army. After Omar was freed in June of 2014 and got reunited with his viola, he went on to study abroad, and from 2014 until 2021, the siblings had been separated in different countries for their musical studies.
In 2021, Mostafa, Tibah and Gandhi reunited in Italy to bring the quartet closer together and finished their master’s degrees. They had occasional rehearsals when Omar visited from Palestine. In 2022-2023, the quartet was enrolled in an artist diploma course studying with the Cremona quartet at the Stauffer Centre for Strings. In October 2023 the quartet moved to Paris following a successful audition for the ‘Cycle concertiste’ at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Paris to study with professor Miguel Da Silva.
The Galilee Quartet is known for the diverse music it presents, as all its members play both Classical Western music and Oriental Arabic music. Before 2022, their repertoire was mainly oriental/original. Their classical quartet beginning can be considered to have been at the end of 2022 with their enrollment at the Stauffer Centre for strings.
The members of the quartet each play two roles in the ensemble: Omar plays the viola and Arabic percussion. Mostafa plays the violin and the Oud. Tibah plays the cello and sings, and Gandhi plays the violin and sings. For Western classical music the formation is the classical quartet with two violins, viola, and a cello, and for the Eastern Arabic music the formation changes depending on the piece/song presented.
The repertoire of the quartet includes a number of original compositions and a song by Mostafa and Gandhi, some with an eastern touch, some with western, and some combining the two which show the musical influences from growing up in their Arab Palestinian society listening and playing eastern Arabic music and studying western classical music.
The quartet has been part of Le Dimore del quartetto since the end of 2022, and all quartet members have become associated(associates) to the Ensemble Music Academies of Palestine since 2020. In September 2023, the quartet attended the Ravel Academie in Saint Jean de Luz and was awarded a Bourse du Fonds de dotation Dany Pouchucq.
The Saad siblings, as many call them, are passionate about giving back to their community and aim to continue enhancing the music scene of Palestine.
Residency project:
Esordio project
“Esordio means a beginning or a debut. It is also the name of a piece written by our first violinist Mostafa, which we often perform to symbolize our beginning somewhere, e.g. a first performance at a certain stage or in a certain place, for hopes that it is the beginning of many more concerts there. We decided to call this project Esordio to symbolize our move to France and our experience with its music and culture as well as the introduction of our music to the audiences in this beautiful place.”