Dr. Saad allah Agha alkalaa is a man of science and art. Born in 1950, He studied music at the Conservatory of Aleppo, and became later a teacher there. In parallel, he studied Civil engineering at the University of Aleppo, and traveled later to France to prepare his Ph.D. in Engineering. Returning to Syria as a professor of engineering and computer programming at the University of Damascus, he started to write many of studies and research in Arabic music, and presented hundreds of hours of music television programs, in the Syrian television and most of the Arab television stations. Musician adept at playing qanoon, he is also a member of the Syrian Associations of engineers, artists and teachers, a Co-founder of the Syrian Computer Society, and he served as Minister of Tourism in Syria for a period of ten years. He won also numerous Syrian and Arab awards, Including the Ziryab International Prize in Music, in 2016.
Saadallah Agha al-Qalaa is distinguished, as a musicologist, through his tendency to employ modern technology, especially computers and databases, in Arabic music research in ways never touched before.
He developed an Arabic music information system, and put it in the service of Arab music analysis, then he started to publish his research on television, applying the latest music and comparative analysis methods, relying on his specialty in music, engineering and informatics at the same time, in addition to his high performance in TV presentation. His efforts are currently focused on completing his project, “the second book of Songs” and publishing it in the form of an electronic encyclopedia. In March 2017, he launched his new project: Towards a New Arab Music Revival.