Bio
Ayman Asfour is an Egyptian violinist, composer, and improviser from Alexandria, based in New York. He performs a diverse repertoire spanning Egyptian folk, Arabic maqam, Western classical music, jazz, and free improvisation.
His debut solo album, Sardy Fardy (سردي فردي — Odd Narrative), supported by the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC), will be released in August 2026. The album grew out of a single idea: to write melodies inspired by Egyptian musical heritage, set inside rhythmic frameworks built on odd meters, so that a familiar melodic language is placed inside an unfamiliar rhythmic shape. The six compositions were recorded in two cities — Alexandria, Egypt and Brooklyn, New York — in collaboration with musicians from both.
He has worked with such artists as Hazem Shaheen, Ali Eissa, Ghalia ben Ali, Maurice Louca, and Alan Bishop, as well as Irish fiddler Frankie Gavin, Finnish jazz drummer P.O. Jorgens, and German oud player Roman Bunka. In 2012, he founded Ofouqy, an annual music festival in Alexandria that ran for six years. He is a founding member of The Handover, a trio with Aly Eissa (oud) and Jonas Cambien (keyboards) that plays hypnotic, trance-inducing music inspired by the ritual rhythms of the Egyptian countryside. The Handover has released two albums with Sublime Frequencies: their eponymous debut in 2023 and New Old Medicine in 2026. He is also a founding member of Ampelos Trio, a NYC-based group with Gabe Lavin (oud) and John Murchison (double bass), who released their first album on Purplish Records in 2024.