Born in Lebanon in 1967 in the field of contemporary Arabic theater, Zad Moultaka, composer and visual artist, composes and paints since childhood.
He began playing the piano at the age of five and continued his studies at the Beirut Conservatory with Madeleine Médawar. In 1984, driven out of the war, he moved to Paris where he received the teaching of Marie-Madeleine Petit, Pierre Sancan, Aldo Ciccolini, Bruno Rigutto, Marie-Françoise Buquet and Christian Ivaldi. He obtained a few years later two first prizes unanimously (piano and chamber music) at CNSMDP in Paris and began a brilliant career as a soloist.
In 1993, however, Zad Moultaka voluntarily put an end to this piano career to devote himself to composition and painting.
From 2003, he meets Catherine Peillon, a transformation of his language takes place. He is approached by the musical world (commissions, recordings, conferences, masterclass); the success and the esteem are growing (Festival of Beiteddine and Baalbek in Lebanon, Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, Foundation Royaumont, Radio Festival France, Biennale of Music of Venice, opera of Mainz and Stuttgart in Germany). Opportunities to implement his musical thought served by the greatest performers of the moment: the soloists – Pablo Márquez, Christophe Desjardins, Alexis Descharmes, Lilli Maijala, Erwan Keravec, Amel Brahim-Djelloul, Tomb el-Hage Fadia, Françoise Kubler, Andreas Fischer, the ensemble 2e2m, l’Instant Donné, Ars nova (Poitiers), C barre, the chorus les elements, Musicatreize, the Neue VocalSolisten of Stuttgart, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne de Montreal…, Orchestre de Pau pays de Béarn, Mulhouse Symphony Orchestra, Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra,
He founded the ensemble Mezwej in 2004 to explore the boundaries and the friction between writing and orality, and thus continues great stage and musical adventures. Mezwej is part of an approach, a state of mind of research and development experimentation through a reflection on different musical cultures, a specific tension and friction between writing and oral tradition
The commissions follow one another and the great works like l’Autre Rive, La Passion selon Marie, La Passion d’Adonis, Um, the operas Zajal, Konig Hamed und Sherifa…
For a long time musical projects have left behind the visual arts. Yet in 2011, he is invited to participate in the exhibition Rebirth organized by Janine Maamari at the Beirut Exhibition Center. This moment coincides with a turning point in his artistic life where the expression that takes shape in concrete materials (textures, pigments, liquids…), pushes him to experiment another form of struggle and to operate a transmutation of matter: exploring the scenography and the staging of an opera and several complex musical pieces, allows him to question the boundaries between visible and invisible. To seek what one does not see, its corporality, its frames through which the world becomes visible, and the flesh from which the object is born …
In 2013, The Galerie Janine Rubeiz in Beirut dedicates a monographic exhibition Le Feu de l’Eau.
His works are noticed at the Beirut Exhibition Center and at the Dubai International Art Fair.
In 2015, Emmanuel Daydé becomes the curator of Come in Terra, an important group of unpublished works exhibited at the Palazzo Albrizzi in Venice, during the 56th Biennial of Contemporary Art.
In the autumn of 2016, new works Astres Fruitiers are shown at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, and another one as part of the artistic event of great magnitude, Nuit Blanche in Paris with the partnership of IRCAM.
In 2017, several major events reinforce the international position of Zad Moultaka, red wire composer of the Musica edition of the year. Astres Fruitiers is shown at Art Dubai in the Arab Emirates and at St Pierre-aux-Nonnains, Arsenal of Metz. ŠamaŠ, sound and visual installation for the Lebanese Pavilion, 57th Biennial Art, Venice, Italy (May – November 2017) …
2018 is marked by the homelessness of ŠAMAŠ, SOLEIL NOIR SOLEIL in Beirut, Lebanon at the Sursock Museum (June 2018), then in Suomolina Helsinki, Finland (August-October, 2018). He still participates in Nuit Blanche, Paris within “Premiere Nuit du Temps”. He is invited by the Centre Pompidou-Metz for an installation as part of the exhibition “Peindre la Nuit”, after being commissioned to exhibit “Don’t Fall / Because who ever fell will fall for good” in the dome of Oscar Niemeyer – Tripoli, Lebanon (September-October 2018).
The Epic of Gilgamesh marks a turning point in his musical work: in coproduction with the ensemble Mezwej, the Onassis Cultural Center in Athens and the Metz Music City, he brings together Greek musicians of double culture and baroque musicians in an astonishing crossing of the shadows and memories.
In 2019, he is appointed by the Vanhaerents Foundation to create a sound installation,‘The Death of James Lee Byars – Zad Moultaka in dialogue’ at Santa Maria della Visitazione-Zattere, Venice, Italy, in Collateral with the 58th Venice Biennale.
Some of his recent major achievements: UM, souverain moteur de toute chose 2016. In 2019, Vocal Shadows in collateral with the 58th Venice Biennale; two premiere performances in Germany, Delirio, Deutsche Oper Berlin and Drei Miese Fiese Kerle, Musik Theater im Revier, Gelsenkirchen; Mon Ami le vent, Sveriges Radios Symfoniorkester, Stockholm.
March 2021, commissioned for a big opera Hémon (Opera national du Rhin, Strasbourg), on a libretto of Paul Audi, Zad Moultaka is the composer, the director, the scenograph and is signing the costumes. (The latest sanitary developments did not allow the reopening of the opera, Hémon world première has been broadcasted only on radio live from the opera by France Musique on March 20, 2021 in the program ‘samedi à l’opéra’. The seven scheduled public performances from the opera have been postponed till further notice.
On May 21, 2021, concert in tribute to the 50th death anniversary of Igor Stravinsky with Requiem Canticles, one of Stravinsky’s last works and Requiem for a New World concert-installation for mixed chorus and orchestra by Zad Moultaka on a libretto of Etel Adnan, conducted by Roland Hayrabedian, ensemble Musicatreize, contre-tenor Raffaele Pe.
In October 2021, premiere of L’Orangeraie, for the Compagnie Lyrique de Creation Chants Libres, Montreal, Music Zad Moultaka, Libretto Larry Tremblay, Staging Pauline Vaillancourt, Conductor Lorraine Vaillancourt.
At the same time, his activity as a visual artist has been developed and intensified through exhibitions as Come in Terra (2015), Palazzo Albrizzi, Venice; Terra Incognita (2018) Beirut Art Fair and installations of which Montée des ombres (2016), Nuit Blanche Paris; UM Souverain moteur de toute chose (2016), Vitry Sur Seine; ŠamaŠ (2017) for the Lebanese Pavilion at la Biennale d’Art de Venise; Murmures (2018) Centre Pompidou-Metz; Don’t Fall (2018) Dôme Oscar Niemeyer Tripoli-Liban; landescape (2019), Institut du Monde Arabe Paris, Astre Fruitier-UM (2020), Totah Gallery New York.
November-December 2021, APOCALYPSE 6:08 Paintings Exhibition at AEDAEN Galery, Strasbourg- France.
His encounter in 2017 with Nadine Saddi is an important turning point in the promotion and the management of Zad Moultaka Studio. As a Managing director, she defends and protects its strategic, administrative and financial interests, coordinates with sponsors, collectors, institutions and galleries.
