Born and raised in the cosmopolitan climate of Beirut in the 1960s and 1970s, Rabih Abou-Khalil learned to play the oud at the age of four, later establishing himself as an original composer, not only for being ahead of his time, but also for questioning what others might follow without further reflection. With his bold approach to Western and Arabic classical music, he created a rhythmically and melodically complex musical language entirely his own, which sounds simultaneously strange and familiar, and seems to break with almost all existing musical languages.