Percussion master, oudist and composer Yinon Muallem was born in Israel in 1968 to parents of Iraqi origin. After earning his bachelor’s degree from the University of Tel Aviv, he found himself drawn to the world of music. Starting with Middle Eastern percussion, he then began learning the oud and composing his own music.
His exposure to the beauty of Ottoman Turkish music moved him to study the Turkish oud with master Yurdal Tokcan, and in 2002 he moved to Istanbul and joined the Istanbul Sazendeleri (Istanbul Instrumentalists) ensemble. Muallem performed with the Istanbul Sazendeleri throughout Turkey and the world.
While living in Istanbul, he conducted a host of inter cultural music projects, taking part in concerts with his group in Israel and arranging joint concerts by Israeli and Turkish musicians and musicians from other countries.
His versatility and curiosity led him to collaborations with a variety of musicians including Ross Daly (Greece); Omer Faruk Tekbilek (Turkey-United States); the Tekfen Philharmonic Orchestra, Kudsi Erguner, the İstanbul Sazendeleri, Akin Eldes, Anjelika Akbar, Erkan Oğur, Derya Turkan, Sirin Pancaroglu (Turkey); Alim Gasimov (Azerbaijan); Ganesh Kumar; Subash Chandran (India); and many others.
Yinon released 11 albums of his own compositions. His latest album, “Norwegian Oud", has won excellent reviews in the international music press and has been selected as one of the ten best world music albums by Songlines magazine. His previous album, "Back Home" (Galileo Music, 2019) won the Israeli Acum (Organization of Israeli Musicians) award as the best world music album production.
In 2002, Yinon released his instructive DVD “Arabic Percussion” and since then he has taught at and conducted workshops and courses of Mediterranean world music.
He composed sound tracks for films that were shot in Turkey, Israel, Germany, Italy and the United States and wrote two novels - “Istanbul – Tel Aviv” and “Deep Inside a Broken Violin”.