FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE · 6 October 2026
School of Oud Online participants who have never met their master in person join Ramy Adly on stage on 6 December
Ramy Adly and the School of Oud Online Ensemble perform Adly’s own compositions and the Arabic classics of Sayed Darwish with a string quartet at the Washington DC Temple Visitors’ Center’s Festival of Lights. Free admission.
KENSINGTON, MD — On Sunday 6 December, participants of the School of Oud Online will walk onto a stage beside their master, Egyptian-American oud performer and composer Ramy Adly. For many of them, it will be the first time they have ever been in the same room with him.
The program pairs Adly’s original compositions with the music of Sayed Darwish, the Alexandrian composer widely regarded as the father of modern Egyptian music, arranged for oud ensemble and string quartet. The concert takes place at the Washington DC Temple Visitors’ Center, home to one of the most iconic landmarks in the Washington area, as part of the annual Festival of Lights.
A tradition that once required the same room
The oud is the ancestor of the lute and the guitar, and for almost all of its history it was taught one way: a master played a phrase, and a disciple sitting in front of him answered it. Nothing was written down. If master and disciple were not in the same room, nothing passed between them.
Adly learned that way himself — in Assiut, Upper Egypt, from his grandfather Naguib Ebbed, who studied under Riyad al-Sunbati, the composer who wrote for Umm Kulthum; and then in Cairo under the Iraqi oud master Naseer Shamma, a UNESCO Artist for Peace.
The accident that changed the method
What changed everything was a collision. Driving from Utah to Virginia, Adly hit a deer at full speed. The car was destroyed; he walked away from it. “Sitting on the side of that road,” he says, “I understood that twenty thousand hours of skill could end in a second, and that none of it existed anywhere except inside me.”
He began writing the music down — thousands of pieces, note by note, in a notation he built for the instrument: Ramy Adly’s 7-Layer Sheet Music. Ornament, inflection, and the intervals that fall between the keys of a piano are set on the page rather than absorbed by sitting beside a master. Around it he built a full four-year curriculum and founded the School of Oud Online.
Trusted to play beside the master
The participants performing on 6 December — physicians, working professionals, and young people still at university — learned this music through the School of Oud Online’s programs and the 7-Layer Sheet Music, in their own hours, from wherever they live. They speak different first languages and come from different backgrounds and faiths. Several have never met Adly in person, or one another.
Yet the method has prepared them well enough to be trusted with something the old tradition would have thought impossible: performing live, on one stage, alongside the master they have only known through the page and the screen.
“Some of them I have never seen in person,” Adly says. “I picture one of them tall, and he turns out to be short. I picture another short, and she is tall. On 6 December I finally find out.”
Not every participant could make the trip this time. Several international members of the ensemble were unable to travel to the United States because of visa constraints. For the next performance, the School of Oud Online will help prepare US visa applications for these participants, so they can come and perform live alongside their colleagues.
Adly first performed at the Festival of Lights seven years ago. This year’s fifty-minute program ends with Adly lowering his instrument while the music continues in his participants’ hands. The last sound of the evening is not his.
The Performance
The Broken Guitar Ramy Adly, oud, with the School of Oud Online Ensemble and string quartet Music by Ramy Adly and Sayed Darwish Sunday 6 December 2026, 6:30 pm · Free admission Washington DC Temple Visitors’ Center, 9900 Stoneybrook Dr, Kensington, MD 20895 Part of the Festival of Lights
About the School of Oud Online
Founded by Egyptian-American oud performer and composer Ramy Adly, the School of Oud Online teaches the oud and Arabic music to participants through a four-year certificate program built on Ramy Adly’s 7-Layer Sheet Music. schoolofoudonline.com
Media Contact
Ramy Adly · contact@ramyadly.com ·High-resolution images and interview availability on request.
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Oud Instrument
What is the instrument that appeared at Aladdin musical show 2019?
The instrument that played by Mena Massoud and Naomi Scott It’s called the Oud instrument, its the Guitar of The Arabic Music and musical identity of the Arab world, The Oud instrument that dates back to 3000 B.C the instrument played by Mohamed Abdel Wahab, Naseer Shamma, Ramy Adly a few of the best Oud players in the world.
Aladdin music
Write this section…You can hear it clearly at One Jump a Head song, you will find the Oud came after the “Tabla” instrument, percussion, the Oud and the Qannon plays the main theme before the singer says his part
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnraoP1ZIDw[/embedyt]
One of the greatest romantic scene in Aladdin when the beautiful prances hold Aladdin at his house and said “actually, I have Instrument like that I got from my mother.”
A lot of the lovers of the Oud instrument usually loved the Oud because they found the Oud at their family, household and relatives who play the Oud. Ramy Adly is one of the artists who love to play the Oud because he find it at his house, because his grandfather who is the one who taught him the Oud instrument.
others loves the Oud because they just hunted by it’s magical sounds.
Aladdin movie cast included Allen Manken produced by Dan Lin, and of course directed by the great Guy Ritchie. The film may receive the best musical show, cinematography, customs for 2019
The Oud instrument is a magical instrument this is why we teach the Oud instrument here At The School of Oud Online, by Ramy Adly who teach the Oud Live via Skype to be easier for generations to learn this wonderful instrument, as well a lot of the students who don’t have an Oud instrument, School of Oud Online sent it to the students home and they start to play it right a way.
Read more about how to play the Oud instrument via Skype at The School of Oud Online
SchoolofOudOnline.com
Egyptian oud player and composer Ramy Adly performs Friday at the Kennedy Center
More recently, Rafiya has been living in the New York area, where — when she isn’t focused on her music — she teaches French (her first language) and Spanish. A facility with languages would appear to be among Rafiya’s fortes: She writes lyrics, and sings, in English, French and Lingala (spoken in Congo).
All about the oud
Just a couple of days after Rafiya’s concert, on Friday, the Millennium Stage will showcase the virtuosity of Ramy Adly, an Egyptian oud player and composer who moved to the Washington area earlier this year. Presented in collaboration with the Embassy of Egypt, the concert will feature some of Adly’s own compositions, such as “Alexandria,” a piece whose streams of rapid-fire notes seem to evoke the energy of the storied Egyptian city.
During his performance, Adly also will speak about early music and the history of the oud. He is keenly aware of his chosen instrument’s pedigree. The lute-like oud is “an instrument of kings,” he says. Some translations of the Bible may allude to the harp-playing skill of David, who became a king, but Adly maintains that David’s instrument was the oud.
Raised in a Christian family in Assiut, in upper Egypt, Adly began taking lessons with his grandfather, a professional oud player, at the relatively late age of 15. He was soon hooked. “Maybe it’s destiny for me,” the 29-year-old reflected as he sat for a recent interview in a Capitol Hill cafe.
Following his early oud lessons, Adly relates, he studied intensively at the Arabic Oud House, a music school in Cairo, while pursuing a business degree at Assiut University, in his home town. He later worked as a music lecturer.
Also on Adly’s résumé: a busy teaching regimen via Skype. His School of Oud Online has reached fledgling players in at least 27 countries, including Norway, he says. Now that he is living in the Washington area, he dreams of founding a brick-and-mortar oud school.
“I’d love to add this instrument to American history,” he says.
Allyn Johnson, Ramy Adly, Ethan Philion and Stuart Dickenson perform at the Kennedy Center. (STAFF PHOTO K. DAVIS)
On Aug. 28, noted oud player Ramy Adly appeared on the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage in Washington, DC. The purpose of his performance was “to introduce the West to the oud” and to the beautiful sounds of this 4,000-year-old instrument.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 31, 2015
WASHINGTON, Dec. 31, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Fourth Annual Arab-American Day 2015, hosted by the League of Arab States in cooperation with the Council of the Arab Ambassadors in Washington, DC., ended an afternoon of panel discussions and serious business networking on a cheerful note of music and song during its annual gala reception at the Ronald Reagan Building & International Trade Center, in Washington, DC.
Andrew Gelfuso, Vice President
Andrew Gelfuso, Vice President, TCMA/Ronald Reagan Building & International Trade Center, welcomed the guests by stressing how deeply honored he was to host the Arab League and support such a compelling conference at his facility in Washington DC. “It is our dream to expand our relationship with the US. – Arab community by inspiring innovation and social development and fostering economic growth in the Arab-American community.”
For his part, H.E Salah A. Sarhan
For his part, H.E Salah A. Sarhan, Chief Representative of the Arab League, said, “Building on the past, for this year we sought to enhance the Arab American Day activities by expanding it to include a Forum of Panels and Workshops with discussions that are aimed at celebrating Arab-American entrepreneurship and innovation.” He noted that “We brought together industry leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, public sector officials, and thought leaders from across the Arab region and Arab-American communities with the goal of exchanging ideas.”
he afternoon of panel discussions
The afternoon of panel discussions and workshops featured 30 speakers and panelists for in-depth discussions and brainstorming of important challenges facing the American-Arab community. The goal was to reach “a look forward” at ways to connect the community to a larger global ecosystem.
This year’s event was attended by 600 guests
This year’s event was attended by 600 guests, represented officials from the World Bank, Congress, U.S. Department of State, diplomats and Arab-American communities and organizations. While enjoying sumptuous Arabic food and pastries, Egyptian oud player and composer Ramy Adly and international Syrian Opera singer Lubana Al Quntar mesmerized the crowd with music and song!
The evening’s keynote speakers
The evening’s keynote speakers also included Ambassador David Thorne, Senior Economic Advisor to the Secretary of State; H.E Antoine Chedid, Ambassador of Lebanon, David Hamod, President and CEO of the National U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce, and Ralph Nader, author, lecturer and political activist who inspired the audience with his remarks on the Arab culture, calling on the U.S to be a humanitarian super power and share with world the best of America.