Professor Nidaa Abou Mrad, MD and PhD in Musicology, is currently the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Research and the Dean of the Faculty of Music and Musicology at the Antonine University (Lebanon). He is also the Director of the Research Centre for Music Traditions and the editor in chief of the peer reviewed journal titled Revue des traditions musicales. He is specialized in the art music tradition of the Mašriq. He has published a large number of articles and authored the book titled “Elements of Modal Semiotics: An Essay on Generative Grammar for Monodic Traditions” in which he drew his own theory on the Modal Semiotics and for which he won the CNRS-L Annual Research Excellence Award in 2017. He is a violin player and a composer with twenty audio CDs.