Saif Al-Khayyat was born in Baghdad. There he studied classical Iraqi and Arabic music at the Baghdad Conservatory and specialized in the Arabic lute the Oud.
His masters included Rawhi Al-Khammash, Salem Abdul Karim, Majid Abdul Razzaq and Muhammad Hussein Kamar. During his studies he worked as a soloist with the youth orchestra “Amasi Al Sharq” and composed songs for the choir of the church in Baghdad.
In 1998 he left Iraq and found a new home in Germany, where he continued his studies and musical research.
Saif Al-Khayyat founded the jazz band “Ho-Jazz” in Leipzig and began to combine Iraqi, Oriental music and jazz.
He has been working with German percussionist Nora Thiele since 2002 and in 2014 they released their first album “Babylonian Dreams”. In 2015 they won the Creole World Music in Berlin as the best duo. Saif Al-Khayat wants to make Iraqi and Arabic music accessible to European listeners, gives workshops and gives lectures on Arabic Lute “Oud” and Arabic music theory.
In 2015 he participated in the Trier jazz opera “Blue Sheets” directed by Stefan Bastian with music by Nils Thoma, as well as in the Opera “Crusades” by Ludger Vollmer at the Freiburg Theater.
He composed his first stage music for the theater project “Odyssey”, which won the Düsseldorf prize as one of the best ten theater works in Germany for 2016.
In 2019 he founded his band ALKHAYYAT Quartet, which deals with classical Arabic music and tries to combine European classical music and modern musical works.
Saif Al-Khayyat gave many concerts in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, France the Netherlands, Denmark, Luxembourg and Turkey. In 2016 he completed his studies as a music therapist at the IEK Institute in Berlin.
Today he works as a soloist, composer and Music teacher in the field of oriental Arabic music and leads music projects in various schools in Germany.