Background
Lulua was born in Damascus, Syria on 19 September 1963 to an Iraqi father and a Palestinian mother who had met in Cleveland, Ohio, while working on their graduate degrees in English literature.
Lulua was born in Damascus, Syria on 19 September 1963 to an Iraqi father and a Palestinian mother who had met in Cleveland, Ohio, while working on their graduate degrees in English literature.
He pursued his musical studies in Vienna and Salzburg (1981-1985), Kent, Ohio (1985-1988), Austin, Texas (1988-1993), as well as San Francisco, and Los Angeles, California (1994-1996 and 1998-2000, respectively). Having studied conducting with Peter Richter de Rangenier at the Vienna Music University, with Frank Wiley at Kent State University, Kent, Ohio, and with Louis Lane at The University of Texas at Austin, Bashar received further practical training from the San Francisco Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert Blomstedt and Esa-Pekka Salonen, music directors, respectively. Lulua has conducted performances of variegated repertoires in the Middle East, Europe and the United States of America since 1978, and founded several orchestras, such as The "Ur Orchestra in Austin, Texas and Philharmonia Scotland in Glasgow.
Known for championing contemporary composers, as well as neglected works by household composers -– including those writing in non-Classical idioms –- Bashar was invited by the renowned, London-based American composer Stephen Montague to contribute to the British Broadcasting Corporation Symphony Orchestra-sponsored "John Cage UnCaged Musicircus" at the Barbican Centre, London in 2004.
In a 2009 masterclass guided by Maestro Jorma Panula with the Rousse Philharmonic Orchestra in Bulgaria, Bashar conducted the first movement of the Resurrection Symphony by Gustav Mahler. He returned to Bulgaria in 2013 to conduct Acting 3 of Louisiana bohème at the Burgas State Opera.
Lulua is the Principal Guest Conductor of the Camerata Miskolc in Miskolc, Hungary, and has recorded rarely performed works with them, such as Antonín Dvořák"s Notturno in B, operation 40, Carl Nielsen"s Little Suite for strings, operation
1, and Jean Sibelius" Romance in C, operation
42, Impromptu, and Rakastava (The Lover), operation 14.
He is a naturalised citizen of the United Kingdom.