Layth Sidiq is a violinist, composer and educator. Born in Iraq and raised in Jordan, Layth trained at the National Music Conservatory with Timur Ibrahimov, and later at the Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester, U.K. He holds a BM from the Berklee College of Music as well as an MM from the Berklee Global Jazz Institute ,where he studied with artists including Danilo Perez and Terri Lyne Carrington. Layth has performed internationally with artists including Simon Shaheen, Javier Limon, and Jack Dejohnette, and has recorded on Grammy-nominated albums. He has performed as leader and sideman in venues including the Boston Symphony Hall and the Kennedy Center, and in 2018, he won second place in the Zbigniew Seifert International Jazz Violin Competition in Poland. Layth is the director of the Arab Music Ensemble at Tufts University and the Center for Arabic Culture’s Youth Orchestra Program and teaches at Simon Shaheen’s Arabic Music Retreat in Massachusetts.
Interviewed by Tamar Sella, 10/06/2020.