Bio : Ibrahim Maalouf
Growing up outside Beirut, Ibrahim Maalouf spent his earliest years seeking refuge from the violence and chaos of the Lebanese Civil War. Sometimes, he found it in a basement or a bomb shelter, but more often than not, he found it in his trumpet.
“Composing this very joyful music was my way of escaping the weight of reality,” he reflects. “I created melodies that were meant for dancing and singing and partying as a way to bring light to the darkness.”
Bringing light to the darkness is precisely what Maalouf does on his remarkable new album, The Trumpets of Michel-Ange Vol. 2. The second installment of a globe-spanning, genre-defying trilogy, the collection finds Maalouf embracing the infectious energy of street music from around the world, weaving together strands of Spanish, Indian, American, Brazilian, Cuban, French, Eastern European, African, and Middle Eastern music with help from a host of luminaries including Jon Batiste, Trombone Shorty, Pedrito Martinez, Nai Barghouti, Weedie Braimah, Hamilton de Holanda, Gonzala Rubalcaba, Las Migas, and more. Like Vol. 1, the songs here showcase the versatility of the quarter-tone trumpet:an instrument Maalouf’s father invented in the 1960s and which Maalouf has long championed as an educator and philanthropist. The performances embody the kind of raw, exhilarating energy that’s made Maalouf a global star (he recently surpassed sales of more than one million albums and will stage the largest ever instrumental jazz concert at Paris’s La Défense Arena in 2027). This time around, however, the recordings are even more communal and collaborative in nature, focusing on the magic that happens when musicians from disparate backgrounds come together in artistic union. And while Maalouf first began composing many of the album’s core melodies and movements nearly two decades ago, the spirit feels more relevant—and more essential—than ever.
“Music is bigger than any of us. It transcends language and religion and politics. The artists who joined me on this album couldn’t be more different, but we all share the same desire to connect, to bring people together and lift them up,” says Maalouf.
Music, after all, didn’t just lift Maalouf up; it saved his life. After escaping Lebanon with his family, he spent his formative years in France, where he enrolled at the Conservatoire de Paris and earned a reputation as one of the world’s most promising young classical instrumentalists with wins at a string of prestigious international competitions. Maalouf had a veracious musical appetite, though, and the more he bristled against the weight and strictures of classical orthodoxy, the more he found himself intrigued by jazz, soul, hip-hop, and Middle Eastern music, along with the limitless possibilities that came from blending them all together.
“I used to imagine myself playing with brass bands in New Orleans and Barcelona or Gypsy groups in Eastern Europe,” he recalls. “I wanted to hear what it would sound like for all these different cultures to meet.”
And so Maalouf began composing his own songs on the quarter-tone trumpet, releasing a wide-ranging series of nearly two dozen critically acclaimed albums that would establish him as a household name in France, where he’s been dubbed a Knight of the National Order of Merit and a Knight of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Praised as a “virtuoso” by The New York Times, Maalouf has performed in more than 40 countries; sold out multiple nights at arenas from Paris to Istanbul; been welcomed into the inner circle of legendary producer/composer Quincy Jones; raised millions for charitable causes around the world; and collaborated with everyone from Wynton Marsalis and Jon Batiste (who introduced him as “a living legend” on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert) to Josh Groban and Sting (who asked him to play at the reopening of the Bataclan after the tragic 2015 terrorist attack there). In recent years, Maalouf, has earned back-to-back GRAMMY nominations, shared stages with A$AP Rocky, J Balvin, Ty Dolla $ign, and Christina Aguilera, composed film scores for famed French directors like Claude Lelouche and Safy Nebbou, served on juries at Cannes and the Deauville American Film Festival, performed at the Hollywood Bowl alongside Stevie Wonder, John Legend, and Jacob Collier, played for an audience of six million in front of the Eiffel Tower on Bastille Day, and released a collaborative record with Angelique Kidjo that prompted love everywhere from Rolling Stone to NPR.
“I’ve always made music with a long-term perspective,” Maalouf reflects. “I’ve never chased trends or commercial success. If you listen to my albums, you’ll notice that no two sound alike, but my audience comes along for the ride because they trust me, because they know that everything I do is authentic and genuine and from the heart.”
To celebrate the upcoming 20th anniversary of his career as a fully independent artist, Maalouf has even bigger plans. In addition to the massive arena show planned at La Défense Arena, which will feature special guests including Sting and Kidjo as well as the 120-member French National Guard Orchestra and a 1,000-voice choir drawn from French conservatories, Maalouf will also mount an extensive international tour, release a new book reflecting on his remarkable journey, and share an album of reimagined French standards recorded with his wife, the singer Hiba Tawaji, to be released in fall of 2026, on the exact date of their wedding anniversary. Ibrahim is working closely with UNESCO and the UN to help establish the trumpet as an essential instrument for intercultural dialogue and a tool for peace.
“The trumpet is the oldest instrument in the world,” he explains. “People used to blow into shells, and then they used animal horns, and eventually we got to the more recognizable brass instruments we have today. It’s a quintessentially human sound: we play it inside and outside, at weddings and funerals, when we go to war and when we celebrate peace. It’s the only instrument mentioned in the Bible, the Torah, and the Quran. We need common ground more than ever right now, so I want to do everything I can to advocate for trumpets and to get them into the hands of as many young people around the world as possible.”
In the end, that desire to build cultural bridges through art is what The Trumpets of Michel Ange is all about. Maalouf focused Vol 2 on celebratory street music because it belongs to the people, because it doesn’t just speak across cultures, but also across class and race and social status to touch on something deeply fundamental about the human condition.
“I keep a poster from the movie Life Is Beautiful on the wall in my studio,” Maalouf shares. “It’s about a father who shields his son from the reality that they’re living in a Nazi concentration camp. In a lot of ways, that’s the role music has played for me in my life, and the role I want to play for others. I want these songs to provide joy and hope and light in the darkness. I want to offer refuge.”