Yosifah Rose, riqq, duff, kanun, and voice, is a unique and highly talented professional Middle Eastern musician and educator in the ancient Arabic tradition of the 'alwalim. (The almeh were a class of highly educated female artists who studied, taught, wrote, and performed classical Arabic music and dance for female members of the Middle Eastern aristocracy.) Yosifah grew up in a culturally rich environment, listening to, singing along with, and dancing to Mediterranean, Arabic, and Western music. She 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, Naima Akef, and others.

Yosifah and her husband Nathan have always been musicians. In 1997, Yosifah Rose completed her Master's Degree in Teaching English as a Second Language, received a California Designated Subjects Adult Education Teaching Credential and began teaching adults ESL (English as a Second Language). Soon after, with the encouragement of her husband, she began to immerse herself in her studies of Middle Eastern music and dance. Since then, she has studied the Classical Arabic language, music theory, tabla, riqq, kanun, voice, and Middle Eastern dance with many of the most highly regarded instructors in the greater San Francisco Bay area and beyond. She has studied Middle Eastern rhythms and tabla with the internationally acclaimed instructor Mary Ellen Donald as well as other highly respected instructors in the area. For the past four years, she has been studying classical Arabic music, percussion, and voice with the distinguished instructor master musician Elias Lammam. Mr. Lammam is recognized internationally as a leading authority of Classical Arabic music and was trained at the Conservatory of Classical Arabic Music in Lebanon. Additionally, she has continued her Classical Arabic language studies in the Bay Area, as well as at the Kalimat Language School in Cairo, Egypt.

Yosifah Rose is a highly regarded professional performer and instructor. She is the organizer and hostess of 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. Additionally, her band Al 'Azifoon regularly performs live Arabic music at Middle Eastern-themed festivals, parties, and other family-friendly events.

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 thirty 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 has been studying Arabic rhythms, maqam theory and Arabic ensemble music with Elias Lammam since 2004.

Paul Ohanesian is a long-time, well-known and well-respected member of the Bay Area Middle-Eastern music and dance community. Paul has been very helpful in filling out our sound, bringing his years of playing experience on oud and percussion to Al 'Azifoon. He also has some great stories to tell!

Paul has been involved with the San Francico Bay Area Armenian music scene since age 8, as a percussionist under the tutelage of Charlie Alexanian. Paul picked up the oud in 1973, as the result of a party conversation with a violinist and a drummer. In 1977 he joined Robaire Nakashian to work with his Belly Dance Troupe, Zaghareet. The popular duo appeared at restaurants, festivals and special events. Paul has also been involved in projects with Peter Dorian, Alan Ishmael and Joe Zeytoonian.

Coincidently, Paul is married to Sharifa, a well-known local bellydance instructor, who was Yosifah's first dance teacher.

Zaid Ali, tabla, embraces an authentic style of Arabic drumming which integrates both a highly developed understanding of the complex musical structure of the Arabic rhythms of the Middle East and a strong intuitive, emotional and technical "feeling" for the rhythms.

Born in Suva, Fiji to parents of Indian and Afghani descent, Zaid grew up listening to Arabic music on his grandfather's old vinyl records and was drawn to the complex rhythmic structures played on the Arabic tabla (doumbek). Zaid pursued studying the Arabic tabla when he moved to the United States in 1998. Since then, he has studied tabla, riqq, and duff continuously in the San Francisco Bay area with the internationally acclaimed instructor Mary Ellen Donald. For the past two years, has been studying classical Arabic music with the distinguished instructor master musician Elias Lammam. Mr. Lammam is recognized internationally as a leading authority of Classical Arabic music and was trained at the Conservatory of Classical Arabic Music in Lebanon.

Zaid's talent has been recognized and embraced by numerous Bay Area Arabic musicians such as Mark Bell, Tony Lammam, Nader Shahin, and Bashir Shahin. Additionally, both Mary Ellen Donald and Elias Lammam have invited Zaid as a guest percussionist in their performances.