George Kirmiz, a Palestinian Christian, was born in Jerusalem in 1953 in the Old City of Jerusalem. He was a self-taught musician who learned to play the guitar whilst young and joined the group al-Baraem in 1971, as a guitarist and singer-songwriter. He was an exceptional songwriter and an early form of local ethnomusicologist, who collected (and released) folk songs in Palestine, sung in small villages around the West Bank. After moving to the US to join his brother in the mid 70s, he continued to produce music whilst working in a shoe shop, and was popular for a time throughout the diaspora and in Palestine, though his extraordinary writing will undoubtedly earn him recognition from future generations, and place him in the ranks of some of the greatest Palestinian musicians and poets.