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Alumni News
Walid Howrani’s ’67
dream came true
last June when the English Chamber
Orchestra performed his Concerto for
Alto Saxophone, Strings and Percus-
sion which he had written more than
15 years ago.
The Orchestra, conducted by Paul
Watckins, with Simon Haram as solo-
ist, was performed at the Plaisterers
Hall in London and included works of
other composers of Arabic origin with
compositions by Western composers
including Mozart, Bartok, Vivaldi and
Peter Maxwell Davies.
Born in New York in 1948, Howrani
moved to Beirut with his family in
1951. He studied Music in Beirut and
later in Moscow. At the age of 18, he
won the certificate of Honor at the
Tchaikovsky International Piano Com-
petition and the Laureate in the Queen
Elizabeth of Belgium Competition two
years later.
Since then Howrani has been daz-
zling audiences worldwide with his
piano performances. He has received
many awards including the Prize of
Said Akl (1968), the Lebanese Medal
of Merit (1969), the Creative Artist
Grant from the Michigan Council for
the Arts (1988), the True Spirit award
from the Los Angeles-based 500 Club
for Lebanon (1991), the Artistic Ex-
cellence award from Wayne County,
Michigan (1992), the Khalil Gibran
Fine Arts Scholar Award (1992 and
1993), and the Lebanese Medal of
Cedar (1999) and was honored in San
Diego where April 13th was declared
Waleed Howrani Day.
The London concert will be repeated
in the “Al Farabi 2008: series featur-
ing composers from Arab countries
at Queen Elizabeth Hall. The perfor-
mance will be repeated in Paris, Ber-
lin, Copenhagen and Amsterdam.
Howrani’s dream comes true
The Ray R. Irani Hall was inaugu-
rated last February at the University
of Southern California (SC). The
118,000-square-foot building is a state
of the art research and training facility
for college life scientists.
Ray Irani studied at IC for three
years and graduated in 1950. He left
for the US at 18 to begin his graduate
studies from USC. He received his
PhD in 1957.
Irani’s research has lead to many
scientific advances. His publications
include more than 50 papers. He au-
thored “Particle Size” and holds more
than 150 patents.
Irani joined Occidental in 1983 and
played a big role in helping its strug-
gling chemical division. He became
the company’s CEO in 1990.
“Over the past several years, Ray
Irani has enhanced the university in
many ways through his wise steward-
ship as a member of USC Board of
Trustees and his loyal support of our
schools and programs,” USC president
Steven Sample said during the inaugu-
ration and as quoted in the USC Col-
lege Newsletter.
The building houses faculty staff
and students who bring revolutionary
advances to the fields of genomics,
molecular biology, genetics, bioinfor-
matics, biochemistry and evolution.
“In this building – among our grad-
uates, grad students and postdocs – we
may have the next Norm Arnheim,
who is unlocking the mysteries of how
genes cause disease. Or perhaps the
Myron Goodman, who is revealing the
workings of enzymes that are vital to
protecting our bodies against danger-
ous diseases,” Sample said. “Maybe
we have the next Mike Waterman, the
father of computational biology.”
Irani is an Honorary Fellow of the
American Institute of Chemists and is
a member of the Council on Foreign
Relations. Irani is currently a Trustee
of USC and Vice Chairman of the
Board of American University of Bei-
rut. He is married to Ghada Irani.
With additions from the USC College
newsletter.
Ray Irani Hall