NY Oud Festival Day 4 | Bahar Badiei, Layan Hawila & Farah Zahra 3pm Sunday, May 24th, 2026 Maqām Studio - 250 44th St, Brooklyn, NY 11232 $30

Day 4 of the festival will feature sets by oudists Bahar Badiei, Layan Hawila, Farah Zahra at Maqām Studio.

Bahar Badiei is a Brooklyn-based oudist, composer, and educator from Tehran, Iran. Her work spans jazz, classical music of Iran, contemporary concert music, and free improvisation. Bahar has toured with Danilo Pérez and the Global Jazz Messengers and has appeared at venues including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and National Sawdust, as well as at festivals in Iran and the U.S., including the Detroit Jazz Festival and the New York Oud Festival. All About Jazz has called her “a master improviser,” describing her playing as “free of tonal constraint.” Bahar will perform a solo set of pieces and improvisations from the Iranian classical musical repertoire (Dastgah music), as well as a trio set of original compositions, accompanied by double bassist and vocalist Devon Gates and pianist Yvonne Rogers.

Farah Zahra is an ethnomusicologist, archivist, and oud player. She holds a PhD in music from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and studied oud performance at the Arab Oud House in Cairo and Baghdad. Accompanied by Zafer Tawil on percussion, she will perform classical pieces and improvisation from the Iraqi school of oud.

Layan Hawila is a Palestinian Oud player and singer born and raised in Haifa, she has been performing for over twelve years. Now in her second year at Berklee College of Music under the guidance of renowned virtuosic Oud player and composer professor Simon Shaheen, she is pursuing a double major in Music Therapy and Performance, becoming the first Oud principal in Berklee’s history to major in Music Therapy. Passionate about the healing power of music, Layan also serves as a Berklee Student Ambassador and President of the Music Therapy Club, where she works to inspire connection, creativity, and compassion through Music.

This performance will feature Layan’s singing and oud playing, moving between instrumental pieces and song as threads of one story. Drawing from the traditions of the Levant, the music reflects on love, longing, and homeland. Folkloric Palestinian songs emerge alongside these, carrying echoes of memory, identity, and belonging. Through voice and instrument, the oud becomes both storyteller and witness, bridging past and present in a living, resonant tradition.