An award-winning cellist with “a particularly lustrous tone” (Chicago Tribune), Naseem Alatrash’s performance style includes a mix of improvisation and traditional melodies, with a focus on traditional Arabic music, contemporary classical music influence, and Jazz.

Concurrent with his work with the Turtle Island Quartet, Alatrash tours as a soloist performing his own music, and is a member of the Global Messengers ensemble with pianist Danilo Pérez, and Amir ElSaffar’s Rivers of Sound ensemble. He has appeared at numerous international festivals, including the Newport Jazz Festival, the Dominican Republic Jazz Festival, Detroit Jazz Festival, Panama Jazz Festival, Abu Dhabi Music Festival, Lebanon’s Beit Aldeen Festival, Aix-en-Provence Festival, and Jerash Festival to name a few. He has performed at such notable venues as the Kennedy Center, the Lincoln Center, Wigmore Hall, NYU Abu Dhabi Arts Center, the Royal Opera of Oman, The Royal Albert Hall, and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. He has performed alongside world-renowned musicians, including Ron Carter, Terri Lyne Carrington, Steve Vai, Eugene Friesen, Danilo Perez, Simon Shaheen, Scott Page of Pink Floyd, Carmine Rojas of David Bowie, and many others.

Alatrash received a first prize Mass Cultural Council’s composition fellowship award of 2021 for his exceptional composition work. Alatrash received grants from the Boston Foundation Live Arts Boston and the Arab fund for Arts and Culture “AFAC”. Alatrash has been awarded String Player of the Year twice from The National Music Competition of Palestine. As an educator, Naseem is the director of the Arab Music Ensemble at Tufts University in Massachusetts and the director of the Global Folk Traditions Ensemble at Longy School of music. He also gave numerous workshops around the world. Alatrash holds a Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Post-Master’s degrees from Berklee College of Music. alatrashmusic.com