NY Oud Festival Day 2 | How to Listen to the Oud with NY Oud Festival
Thursday, May 14, 2026. 2-3PM The Metropolitan Museum of Art - 1000 5th Ave, New York, NY 10028 Gallery 681, The André Mertens Galleries for Musical Instruments FREE with Museum admission
Immerse yourself in the oud (Middle Eastern lute) with a performance by Gabriel Lavin and Bilen Işıktaş. Then, enjoy a Q & A. Be inspired by the oud, its musical history, and its artistic connections to The MET collection.
Free with Museum admission; admission is pay what you wish for New York state residents, and free for children under 12 with an adult, and a caregiver accompanying a visitor with a disability. Note: Space is limited; first come, first served.
Dr. Bilen Işıktaş is a scholar-artist and Professor of Musicology at Istanbul University State Conservatory, currently a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University’s Department of Music. His work integrates performance, historical research, and the sociology of music, with a focus on Turkish and Ottoman musical traditions and their contemporary reinterpretation.
He gained international recognition in 2009 after receiving second prize at the International Oud Competition in Beirut. He holds a PhD in Musicology and Music Theory from Istanbul Technical University (2016). Işıktaş has performed at UNESCO in Paris and at major international oud festivals in Qatar and Morocco, as well as across Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, South Korea, and the United Arab Emirates. Alongside his concert career, he has published several books and articles on Turkish music history and music culture. His current research at Harvard examines early sound recordings, performance practice, and the formation of the global music industry.
Gabriel Lavin, Ph.D., is a musician, scholar, and educator based in Brooklyn, NY. His research on cultural history, media, and music has been published in a variety of international volumes and academic journals. A graduate of Beit Al Oud in Abu Dhabi, he is a specialist in modern oud playing and education in addition to oud playing styles from the Arabian Peninsula. He currently serves as Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Music at Columbia University, and in Fall 2026 will begin a postdoctoral fellowship at the American University of Sharjah (UAE) to help develop academic pedagogical models for teaching oud playing styles from the Gulf and Yemen.
Gabriel holds a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from UCLA (2023) and recently presented and performed at the First Conference of Arab Music in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In addition to his research and writings, he maintains an active career as a performer, appearing with Naseer Shamma’s oud orchestra, the Los Angeles Arab Orchestra, the New York Arabic Orchestra, the Oman Oud Association, Mona Miari and the New York Arabic Chorus, and also performed at the Khartoum Oud Festival in 2014 and 2017.
The New York Oud Festival is a multi-day, multi-venue music festival that displays the oud and its versatility as it exists in New York's diverse musical culture. The NYOF celebrates the oud and its wide-ranging influence on global music culture, showcasing artists from a multitude of traditions and contexts, and demonstrating why the oud continues to be one of the world's most beloved instruments. www.newyorkoudfestival.com