A French and Lebanese composer born March 18, 1957 in Beyrouth (Lebanon).
A pianist by training, Bechara El-Khoury began his music studies in Beirut in 1969 and became choirmaster of the Saint Élie church in Antelias. In 1979 he took advanced classes in Paris with Pierre Petit (composition and orchestration) and settled in France.
Imbued with the history of his native land, he composed a Lebanese trilogy comprising a first symphony, Les Ruines de Beyrouth (1985), his first symphonic poem, Le Liban en flammes (1980) and a Requiem for orchestra (1980), dedicated to the martyrs of the war.
His music, tinged with resonances of the Middle East and imbued with modernity, carries a message of love, hope and at times manifests a violent description of the contemporary world (New York Tears and Hope, completed in 2005, in homage to the victims of 11 September 2001). Between harmonic tensions, a tendency towards atonality, lyrical outbursts and moments of dreamy peacefulness (Dark mountain, concerto for horn and orchestra, 2008, premiered by David Guerrier and the Orchestre National de France at the Festival Présences), Bechara El Khoury reveals a broad palette of poetic colours (Les fleuves engloutis for orchestra, 2001, commissioned by Radio France; Autumn pictures, concerto for clarinet and orchestra, 2010, first performed by Patrick Messina and the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris; Quatre poèmes for flute, 2015).