Bashar Lulua, born in Damascus on 19 September 1963, is a naturalised citizen of the United Kingdom, and is of Iraqi-Palestinian heritage.
He studied at the Baghdad Conservatoire, the Vienna Music Academy, Kent State University, Ohio and the University of Texas at Austin. Further training was undertaken with the San Francisco Symphony under Herbert Blomstedt and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra under Esa-Pekka Salonen.
His mentors include Vladimir Zinovieff, former Music Director of the Gnessin Symphony Orchestra, Moscow, Miklós Cser, former First Conductor of the Szeged and the Budapest Operas, now in charge of the Pécs Performing Arts Centre, Peter Richter de Rangenier, composer and former Generalmusikdirektor in Hof, Germany and former Conductor of the Santiago de Chile Opera, Frank Wiley, composer and Director of the Kent State University New Music Ensemble, and Louis Gardner Lane, the resident conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra under Georg Széll from 1947-73.
Maestro Blomstedt, upon viewing Bashar’s performance of Debussy’s Danse sacrée et danse profane, with Whit Dudley, harp, wrote: ‘He impressed me favourably as a very capable and sound musician, devoting himself exclusively to the music and the precise and subtle realisation of its beauties. The exaggerated acting, which is so often found in young conductors, was conspicuously absent.’
Maestro Lane, Bashar’s mentor at The University of Texas at Austin, wrote that his ‘background of study and experience is wide and varied. I have heard him conduct a number of works from different nationalities and periods, each in a manner appropriate to its composer.’
Maestro Richter de Rangenier, Bashar’s mentor at the Vienna Music Academy, wrote that he ‘is going far beyond what is technically learnable and reaching deep into the nature of musical structure and to that of the Gestalt, which can only be uncovered between the staff lines, and to which actually only a precious few find entry.’
Having been fortunate to be exposed to numerous regions, Bashar has been inspired by the standard canon of orchestral, choral, ballet and operatic music as well as a wide-ranging repertoire of other works, from Albinoni to Zappa and beyond. He goes against today’s prevalent tendency to specialise, and values versatility above all else.
Known for his love of contemporary music, Bashar was invited by the renowned American composer Stephen Montague to contribute to the unique, BBC Symphony Orchestra-sponsored John Cage UnCaged Musicircus at the Barbican in January 2004.
Bashar has championed numerous emerging composers in the US and the UK, such as Howard Fredrics, Vern Nelson and Matthew J. Taylor and given the world or local premières of several works by them in their respective countries. He has also championed numerous overlooked composers, such as Abdalla El-Masri of Lebanon and Halim El-Dabh of Egypt, who was one of his professors at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio.
Bashar founded The ‘Ur Orchestra in Austin, Texas in 1996 and has guest-conducted numerous orchestras and choirs, as well as dance and opera performances, in Austria, France, Germany, Iraq, the United Kingdom and the United States since 1978. At various American universities, he guest-conducted operas by Beethoven, Mozart, Puccini, Verdi and Wagner. He also served as Conductor of the Harrow Symphony Orchestra in London 2003-04 and founded a string and a full orchestra within Philharmonia Scotland in Glasgow in 2005. He is currently based in Berlin, where he is organising some new musical productions.
He has an extensive interest in languages and literature in addition to the performing arts in their broadest sense, including numerous styles of music, such as jazz and various world musics, such as Tango, Fado and Taraf de Haïdouks, but especially the effervescent Musical Theatre Works of the Rahbanis of Lebanon.