Through his music, Yinon Muallem combines his abilities as a composer along with his experience as a percussionist. In his
music, he combines rhythms and melodies from an array of musical genres and synthesizes influences from traditional Turkish music, Sufi music, gypsy music, Klezmer music, and also glimpses of Balkan and Indian music into a cohesive musical statement.
Yinon was born in Israel in 1968 to parents of Iraqi origin. He began his musical career playing Latin percussion instruments.
Over the years, going back to his roots, he was drawn to Middle Eastern music. Through his career he has developed his own
unique style, playing Middle Eastern and Turkish percussions such as darbuka, def, bendir and Iranian zarb as well as South Indian kanjira and gatham. Yinon has been inspired by the playing of various percussion masters such as Israeli Zohar Fresco, Iranian Djamechid Chemirani and Pejman Hadadi and South Indian Ganesh
Kumar and Subash Chandran.
Several years ago, when Yinon began to play and compose on the oud, he traveled to Turkey to study oud with the Turkish virtuoso Yurdal Tokcan. The two musicians developed an instant chemistry that led to Yinon’s collaboration with Tokcan, Goksel Baktagir and other Turkish musicians. He has also collaborated with international worldwide musicians such as Ross Daly (Greece), vocalist Alim Gasimov and composer Piris Eliyahu (both from Azerbaijan), Omer Faruk Tekbilek (Turkey), Zhubin Kalhor (Iran), Muhammed Alnuma (Irak), Tekfen Philarmonic Orchestra (Turkey), harpist Sirin Pancaroglu (Turkey), pianist Anjelika Akbar (Turkey), Tanju Duru (Turkey), Akin Eldes (Turkey), Ganesh Kumar and Subash Chandran (India), the Israeli Andalusian Orchestra, Yair Dalal, Eyal Sela & Ensemble Darma, Sheldon Sands (USA) and other worldwide
leading musicians and artists.
Yinon has performed in a variety of festivals and concerts in Japan, Turkey, Estonia, Spain, the USA, Belgium,
England, Holland, Greece, Switzerland, France, Czech Republic, Sweden, Morocco, Bosnia, Cyprus, Israel and
Azerbaijan.
In addition to composing, performing and recording; Yinon conducts percussion workshops and he also released an instructional DVD on Middle Eastern percussion.
Yinon currently lives in Istanbul, where he continues to create, develop and perform his music.