Ahmed Mukhtar (أحمد مختار) is an Iraqi oud player, born in Baghdad in 1967. He has been playing the oud and Arabic percussion since 1979. He studied music at the High Institute of Music in Damascus, and at London College of Music. Mukhtar has frequently toured in the Middle East and Europe.
Anouar Brahem (Arabic: أنور ابراهم) is a Tunisian oud (middle eastern lute) player and composer who is widely regarded as an innovator in his field. Performing for primarily a jazz audience, he fuses arabic classical music, folk music and jazz and has been recording since at least 1991 after becoming prominent in his own country in the late 1980s. Brahem began studying the oud at age 10 under the tutelage of Ali Sitri at the National Conservatory of Music in Tunis. In 1987, after six years in Paris, he spent two years as the director of the Ensemble Musical De Ia Ville De Tunis.
Marcel Khalifé (Arabic: مرسيل خليفة) was born in 1950 in Amchit, Mount-Lebanon. He studied the oud (the Arabic lute) at the Beirut National conservatory. His music works around the classical Arabic oud but also includes jazz piano and many other influences. His playing techniques expand far outside those of classical oud playing, however, and he is attributed for having greatly expanded the horizons of this traditional Arabic instrument.
Yair Dalal (born 1955) is a composer, violinist and oud player and is probably the most prolific Israeli ethnic musician today, with global recognition (WOMAD appearances from Seattle to Sydney).
Over the last decade he has put nine albums, covering wide and varied cultural territory. Much of Dalal's output reflects the strong affinity he has for the desert and its habitants. Dalal's family came to Israel from Baghdad and he has included much Iraqi material in his work to date.