The Franco-Lebanese composer and poet Bechara El-Khoury was born in Beirut in 1957. His compositions are dominated by symphonic and concertante writing, his works being the expression of a humanism based on an underlying Christian spirituality. Although his music is often sombre and tragic in tone, there are also moments of moving delicacy, signs of hope which bear witness to a personality governed by strongly contrasting internal influences. His musical language draws on a rich palette of the resources available to today’s composers. El-Khoury is a master of orchestration, displaying a particular taste for virtuoso brass writing. His Ruins of Beirut Symphony, composed in 1985 in memory of the 1975 outbreak of war in Lebanon, is without doubt his most ambitious work to date and belongs to a trilogy of symphonic compositions inspired by this tragic event.