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VOL 08 ISSUE 03 / APRIL 18, 2014

LEISURE

VOL 08 ISSUE 03 / APRIL 18, 2014

LEBANESE LEGENDS
M
ROHM has celebrated Lebanese music with a Gala Concert by Ghady and Oussama Rahbani, heirs of Lebanons most famous musicians the Rahbani Brothers, Assi and Mansour
ore than seven thousand years ago on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean was a settlement called Byblos, meaning well or origin. Now a UNESCO World Heritage site, Lebanons Byblos is believed to be the worlds oldest continuously inhabited city. It was at Byblos in the third millennium BC that an alphabet, understood to be the worlds rst, was invented and in use. A millennium and a half later, Byblos served as the capital of the powerful Phoenician Empire which ourished for over a thousand years from 1,550 to 539 BC. Always amid the rise and fall of Empires As conquerors and shipping lords of the Mediterranean, the Phoenicians were succeeded rst by the Greeks and then the Romans. In the early days of the Holy Roman Empire, Byblos became one of the leading centres of Christianity. A Church rooted in the Meronite monastic tradition has endured into present-day Lebanon which is forty per cent Christian and fty-four per cent Muslim. With the fall of the Roman Empire, the

VOL 08 ISSUE 03 / APRIL 18, 2014

VOL 08 ISSUE 03 / APRIL 18, 2014

LEISURE

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COMING UP AT THE ROHM

Thursday April 24, 2014: 7:30 pm Billed as the worlds most soughtafter operatic bass, Russian superstar and Grammy awardwinner, Ildar Abdrazakov has a rich lyrical voice and a powerful charisma. Tuesday April 29, and Wednesday April 30: 7.30pm Diana Krall, the famous Canadian Jazz singer and pianist, was sold out shortly after the seasons program was announced last summer. Because of the continuing demand, Diana was persuaded to give a second performance. Krall is renowned for mesmerizing vocals, spontaneous arrangements and inspired performances from a vast songbook. Thursday May 8 and Friday May 10: 7.00pm Rusalka, an opera by Antonin Dvorak, the famous Czech composer, performed by the Czech Brno National Theatre established in 1884. The Opera is based on a Slavic fairytale about a water sprite.
Photos: Khalid Al Busaidi

lands that are now Lebanon were occupied by a succession of powers, chiey the Egyptians (Seljuk, Mamluk), Persians, Arabs and Armenians. And then, for the next six centuries - from the end of the thirteenth century until the First World War, Lebanon was ruled by the Ottomans. In the peace treaties following the First World War, Lebanon was ceded to France; and it was not until 1943, in the middle of the Second World War, that Lebanon gained Independence. The nation that emerged from some 2,000 years of domination by a spectrum of imperial powers was naturally a diverse and cosmopolitan one; and yet its people had maintained a distinctive identity. During the next few decades, Lebanon became a favoured destination and its sophisticated capital, Beirut, was known as the Paris of the Middle East. Lebanons modern era of peace and prosperity came to a crashing halt with the outbreak in 1975 of a terrible sectarian civil war that was to last until 1990. As troubled as their recent history may be, the people of Lebanon remain strong, proud, and imbued with a great love of poetry and music. The Rahbani Brothers and Fairuz Last week, ROHM celebrated Lebanese music with a Gala Concert by Ghady and Oussama Rahbani, heirs of Lebanons most famous musicians the Rahbani Brothers, Assi (1923 -1986) and Mansour (1925-2009), whose elegant arrangements blended the nest strains of Lebanese folk music with Arab, Armenian, Byzantine and Maronite music traditions. Assi Rahbani was married to none other than Fairuz (1935 - ), indisputably the most renowned singer in the Arab World. Fairuz was born to Maronite Christian parents in a poor and culturally mixed neighbourhood of Beruit. She began her singing career as Nouhad Wadi Haddad, a shy schoolgirl with a distinctively beautiful voice. The Haddad family lived in one room with few possessions. Nouhad would sit on a window ledge listening to songs from a neighbours radio, songs that later she would sing in her own style. Nouhad was given the stage name

Fairuz, meaning turquoise, by the Lebanese Radio Director who felt her voice was as beautiful as this azure jewel. Nouhad means splendour and the combination of the two names proved auspicious. Fairuz met Assi and Mansour Rahbani in a recording studio in 1951, after which a life-long professional and personal collaboration began. Fairuz married Assi in 1954, settling into an idyllic villa between the sea and the mountains amid orange groves and cypress woods, a setting that inspired their poetic songs. The success of Fairuz on Cairo Radio is well known. But she was also a touring concert singer, a career that began when she gave a spellbinding performance under a crescent moon at the temple of Jupiter in Baalbeck, where, oodlit in blue, she sang O Green, Sweet Lebanon. This launched a program of concert tours that would take Fairuz to the worlds greatest venues, including the Met in New York. ROHMs Rahbani Gala with the Ukraine Symphony The ROHM Gala was designed by two musicians of the next Rahbani generation, Ghady and Oussama, as a tribute to the music of the original

Rahbani brothers, described as a journey to a beautiful past, a renewed present and a shining future. It began with memories of childhood in Lebanon on endless shores and shoreless seas. Ghady Rahbani, an accomplished composer, poet and conductor, read a poetic text at various intervals during the concert. Ghady spoke of the power of poetic song, while our region is full of wars eating us up. In an impressive opening to the Gala, more than a hundred musicians from the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine walked on stage with a chorus of twenty singers, the ladies robed in red. Seven singers from Lebanons nest completed the cast, along with the Orchestras highly reputed conductor, Volodymyr Sirenko. This classically trained European Orchestra and Chorus fused classical Arab and Western orchestral styles with spectacular results. The emotional drama that is typical of Arab music, accented by the melodious string section of the Orchestra gave new life to the gorgeous poetry of the Arabic language as expressed in song. Seven singers Contralto superstar, Fadia Tomb and her award-

winning sister, classical singer, Ronza Tomb, were complemented by the exciting coloratura soprano, Hiba Tawaji. Whether singing solo, as a trio, or in duos, the beautifully gowned ladies won the hearts of the audience with the exceptional beauty of their voices and the evocative words they sang of love, of longing, of patriotism and their beloved homeland. The stellar performance of the ladies was matched by that of the four men Ghassan Salibra, reputed to be one of the most important voices in Lebanon; Simon Obeid, a powerful bass singer; Elie Khayat, a brilliant tenor; and Nader Khoury whose distinctive voice spans the male vocal range. All seven singers are associated with the Rahbani School and, in Ghadys closing words, together they stand triumphantly for future lands full of goodness, safety, happiness, freedom, and respect for all human beings, regardless of creed, ethnicity and cultural mores. Including encores, thirty-one songs were sung in another memorable evening at the ROHM, marked by a joyous spirit of celebration and strong audience participation with rhythmic clapping, especially in the old familiar songs we love so much.