Yosifah Rose, qanun, percussion, and voice , is a unique and highly talented professional Middle Eastern musician and educator. Yosifah's lifelong passion has been music and language studies, and she has a deep love and appreciation of both Arabic and Western music. Yosifah and her husband Nathan met as musicians, and they have explored many musical styles in bands together since 1986. Through Nathan's love of folk/rock, their first musical collaborations together resulted in the folk rock band Lost Prophets. However, Yosifah's true musical love and inspiration was further east...in Arabic music. Therefore, she encouraged her multi-instrumentalist husband Nathan to study Arabic music with her and their studies and further musical collaborations lead to the founding of Al'Azifoon... the realization of Yosifah's lifetime dream.

Yosifah has long been inspired by the artists of the golden era of Egyptian cinema, especially by artists such as Om Koulthoum, Farid El-Atrache, Abdel Halim Hafez, Faiza Ahmed, Fairuz, Sabah, Asmahan and others and she enjoys singing and playing their music with Al 'Azifoon.

Yosifah has studied Classical Arabic music (history, theory, repertoire, maqams, and rhythms) with Bay Area master musicans such as Elias Lammam, Mary Ellen Donald, Fadil Shahin, and Laurie Eisler. She continues her studies and research both through analyzing old audio recordings and through research and study of published dissertations and other scholarly work. Additionally, she continues to study the Arabic language (Al Fusha/Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic, and Colloquial Dialects (Egyptian and Levantine) in formal classrooms and with private tutors in the Bay Area to enhance her past studies in Cairo, Egypt. Yosifah enjoys researching, studying, and arranging musical material to enhance Al'Azifoon's repertoire, and considers herself a dedicated lifetime student of Arabic music, language, and culture. In addition, she holds a Master's Degree and a California teaching credential in Teaching English as a Second Language.

Yosifah Rose believes that music and the fine arts have a unique ability to help diverse people to acknowledge each other with mutual respect and appreciation, and she is committed to studying and sharing her love of the Arabic arts and music, Insha'Allah, to promote cross-cultural appreciation and peace. In December 2010, she founded www.arabic-learners.com a website dedicated helping English-speakers who are interested in learning Arabic as a foreign language. The www.arabic-learners.comwebsite provides links to free online lessons and other online resources as well as recommending helpful books and materials for studying Arabic.

Yosifah Rose presents the monthly Dancer's Night Shows at El Morocco Restaurant in Pleasant Hill featuring live music by her band Al'Azifoon and guest Raqs Sharqi artists from all over the greater Bay Area. Yosifah was interviewed by Scott Belding of ARTBEAT Video Magazine in late 2010 in a feature about Al 'Azifoon and El Morocco Restaurant Dancers' Nights. Additionally, her band Al 'Azifoon regularly performs live Arabic music at Middle Eastern-themed festivals, parties, and other family-friendly events. Please see Yosifah's Web site at www.yosifah.com for further information.

Nathan Craver, oud and percussion, began his musical education with a summer of piano lessons at the age of six, but soon lost interest in favor of other six-year-old activities. He heeded the call of the muse again in junior high school, where he played viola in the orchestra for three years. Nathan also began playing the guitar at age 12 and has never stopped, except for brief periods to learn to play the many other stringed and percussion instruments he has acquired since then. Among these are the mandolin, mandocello, bass guitar, joura and balalaika - and the oud, which he had long admired but feared. Following his wife, Yosifah Rose, into the world of Middle-Eastern music helped him overcome his fear and embrace the possibilities and challenges of the microtonal Arabic maqam scales.

Nathan has performed in many different musical formats and styles throughout the Bay Area for the past forty years and has also toured Mexico and Germany. He has recorded with several artists and bands and also has produced several solo instrumental CDs of improvised Middle-Eastern influenced pieces on various instruments. See Nathan's Eastern Strings site for further information.

Nathan studied Creative Writing and Music Theory at San Francisco State University in the mid-70s and Computer Science, Recording Arts and Voice at Diablo Valley and Los Medanos Community Colleges in more recent years. He has studied Arabic percussion with Susu Pampanin, Mary Ellen Donald, Tobias Roberson, Ziad Islambouli and Souhail Kaspar; oud with Naser Musa and Haig Manoukian; and Arabic rhythms, maqam theory and Arabic ensemble music with Elias Lammam, Scott Marcus, and Rachid Halihal.

Paul Ohanesian is an exceptionally talented, well-known and well-respected member of the Bay Area Middle-Eastern music and dance community. As a gifted musician and member of the Bay Area Armenian community, Paul has been playing Middle Eastern music at festivals, clubs, and other cultural events since his youth.

Paul has been a performing musician in the greater San Francico Bay Area Armenian music scene since the tender age of 8 years old when he began performing at festivals and other cultural events as a percussionist under the tutelage of Charlie Alexanian. Paul shifted his musical focus from classical guitar to the Oud in 1973, as the result of a conversation with a violinist and a drummer at an Armenian party. Among his musical influences, he credits Richard Hagopian, John Bilezikjian, the legendary Syrian-born 'Ud Master (as well as famous singer, composer, actor, and movie producer) Farid Al Atrashe, and the late Iraqi Ud Master Munir Bashir.In 1977 he joined Robaire Nakashian to work with his Belly Dance Troupe, Zaghareet. The popular duo appeared at restaurants, festivals, and other cultural events. Paul has also been involved in projects with Peter Dorian, Alan Ishmael and Joe Zeytoonian.

Paul is a well-respected instructor of Armenian-style Oud (teaching beginning through advanced levels) at the Annual Middle Eastern Music Camp every summer in Mendocino, California. In addition to performing Arabic music on oud and percussion with Al 'Azifoon, he also performs Armenian and Turkish music as a soloist and with other highly regarded musicians including Armando Mafufo of the band Sirocco, Jim Karagozian, and Suren Baronian, as well as others. As a long-time member of the greater Bay Area Near Eastern Music scene, he has some imazing stories to tell of the "old days" from the North Beach San Francisco belly dance club scene! Incidently, Paul is married to Sharifa, a well-known local bellydance instructor, who was Yosifah's first formal dance instructor.

VIDEO: Paul demonstrates Armenian Oud technique for the Gilded Serpent Online Magazine at the 20th Annual Middle Eastern Camp held in August 2010.