Lulua was born in Damascus, Syria on 19 September 1963 to an Iraqi father and a Palestinian mother[1] who had met in Cleveland, Ohio, while working on their graduate degrees in English literature.
He pursued his musical studies in Vienna and Salzburg (1981–85), Kent, Ohio (1985–88), Austin, Texas (1988–93), as well as San Francisco, and Los Angeles, California (1994–96 and 1998–2000, respectively).
Lulua was invited by the renowned London-based American composer Stephen Montague to contribute to the BBC Symphony Orchestra-sponsored "John Cage UnCaged Musicircus" at the Barbican Centre, London, in January 2004.
Lulua's contribution was to guide a performance of Christian Wolff (composer)'s Burdocks (1970-71) with the Harrow Symphony Orchestra's New Music Ensemble.
In a 2009 masterclass presided over by Maestro Jorma Panula with the Rousse Philharmonic Orchestra in Bulgaria, Bashar conducted the first movement of the Resurrection Symphony by Gustav Mahler.