Kelsely Abaza (كلسلي أباظة) is an Egyptian avant-garde, multi-genre composer/songwriter and producer, writer, and interdisciplinary researcher working in New Zealand. Abaza’s compositions manifest rich polystylistic variation including elements of avant-garde electronic music, classical music, Arabic and Circassian tonal systems, jazz, musique concrète, vocal music, microtonality, and experimental electro-pop. He is also a member of the ‘Cantabrian Society of Sonic Artists’ and a part-time teacher of Modern Standard and Egyptian Colloquial Arabic, poetry, and literary translation.
Kelsely Abaza was born on 27 December 1984 in Cairo. He is a naturalized New Zealander, having moved to New Zealand to further his education studying Political Science, Sociology and Philosophical Logic at the University of Canterbury. He hails from Egypt’s largest political and literary dynasty, the Circassian/Abazin ‘Abaza Family’, also noted for its artistic and cinematic contributions to Arabic and Egyptian culture, and takes his name from ‘Prince Mahmoud Al-Yazgy Sharaf-ad-Deen Qaraq Kelsely’, a maternal ancestor from the ‘Royal House of Mohamed Ali Pasha’.
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