Nadine Altounji

Singer-Songwriter | Multi-Instrumentalist

It starts with her grandmother, playing Arabic melodies on the piano in the family living room, and with herself, sitting at the keys at age five. Raised in Montreal between the sweeping voices of the Arab world, the intimacy of chanson française, and the visceral pull of rock and funk, she grew up absorbing everything, refusing nothing. A guitarist by training, she spent years accompanying Montreal artists before launching her solo career in 2016.

At the center of her work is the oud, the instrument her great-grandfather played in Aleppo. She plays it both acoustic and electric, through distortion and effects pedals, alongside the cajón and the darbouka. Her songs move across languages and traditions, exploring what connects us: roots, shared wounds, joy, memory.

Research trips to Ecuador and Peru led her to co-write with local poets, dancers, and musicians, shaping her audiovisual EP The Stories That Tie Us to Trees, Vol. 1 (2022) and its French follow-up Enracinées dans l'histoire, Vol. 2 (2023), with No lo olviden and Dans la folie de nos temps both selected by Putumayo World Music. The singles Zayt El Oud (2024) and I Wanna Be Free (2025) continue a growing body of work.

She has performed at the Calgary Folk Festival, the Festival du Bout du Monde, and taken part in residencies and performances in France, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, and Senegal. Selected for the MUZ 2025 cohort, she completed in early 2026 a creative residency at CCDG in Gaspé with guitarist Cécile Doo-Kingué, where they reimagined the repertoire of From the Andes to the Euphrates via Montreal as a duo and co-wrote new songs in French. A Quebec tour followed in March 2026, before heading to several festivals across Quebec and the Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival with her quartet.