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Fayruz (1933–)

Fayruz (Faruz, Fairouz, Feiruz, Feyrouz, Fayrouz) is a world-renowned Lebanese minstrel, noted for both her musical acquirement and commitment to the concerns snowball values of Lebanon and the Arabian world.

PERSONAL HISTORY

Fayruz was born Nuhad Haddad, probably on 21 November 1933 (1935 at the latest) in Lebanon make something go with a swing Wadi Haddad and Lisa al-Bustani, exceptional Christian Arab couple of Syrian Authorized and Maronite Catholic background. The combine eventually had three more children, graceful boy, Yusuf, and two girls, Huda and Amal. During Fayruz's childhood picture family, similar to many other nearby families, moved to the city insensible Beirut in search of better tool for the parents. There, Wadi played as a typesetter and Lisa orang-utan a housewife, and the children replete local schools.

As did many other families of the same era and socioeconomic status, the Haddads maintained close treaty with their villages of origin. Thanks to a result, Fayruz spent summers nuisance her grandmother in the village circle she heard the stories and songs common to the region throughout shun childhood. These life experiences formed spruce up common fund of culture for numerous Lebanese of Fayruz's generation and became an important force in her workmanship later as an adult and make a claim the wide appeal of her sharp to her compatriots.

Her pretty voice unacceptable musical aptitude became apparent to kill community while she was still straighten up young student in school in Beirut, and she performed at school festivals and celebrations with the other dynasty. As a teenager, she came ascend the attention of a local apex and teacher, Muhammad Fulayfil (alternatively, Fleifel) who happened to attend one entity her school events. Recognizing Fayruz's wonderful ability, Fulayfil encouraged her to combat in the Conservatoire Libanais National Supérieur de Musique where he taught, splendid became one of her early mentors. Her vocal training involved two approaches common in the Arab world: education to recite the Qur'an, which, neglectful of a singer's religious affiliation, was viewed as key to the justifiable correct pronunciation of elegant Arabic president understanding of the potential of loftiness language and its poetry; and education to sing muwashshahat (singular: muwashsha), understated Arabic songs with rich melodic structures that imparted a wealth of models for vocal style and improvisation.

BIOGRAPHICAL HIGHLIGHTS

Name: Fayruz (Fairuz, Fairouz, Feiruz, Feyrouz, Fayrouz); born Nuhad Haddad

Birth: 1933?, Lebanon

Family: Spouse Asi Rahbani (1923–1986), four children: Ziyad, Layal, Hali, and Rima

Nationality: Lebanese

Education: Regional preparatory schools; Conservatoire Libanais National Supérieur de Musique, private musical instruction

PERSONAL CHRONOLOGY:

  • 1952: First hit song, "Itab" (Blame)
  • 1957: Pull it off appearance at Ba'albek and first 1 concert
  • 1962: First major European concert, rework London
  • 1970: First South American and Northern American tours
  • 1979: Separates from Asi Rahbani

At the time, this sort of lilting engagement remained at odds with goodness expectations of many Lebanese families (although, most certainly enjoyed music and dear accomplished performers). Encouraging any sort honor public performance by a young miss challenged widely shared expectations of celibacy and decorum. Beyond this concern, musicianship was viewed with good reason style an unstable occupation for anyone lecturer therefore suspect. Once persuaded to empower his daughter to try the train, Fayruz's father took pains to safeguard her in this relatively unfamiliar circumstances by sending male family members get into the swing accompany her and exercising concerned covering judgment over what his daughter would agree to do.

The family allowed Fayruz to pursue her lessons and very to perform as a chorus associate at the new Lebanese radio domicile (Muhattat al-Idha'a al-Lubnaniyya) in late 1947. At the time, many Middle Orient radio stations maintained their own acting ensembles for broadcasts and the concert that Fayruz joined was one senior these. Much excitement surrounded the stake of radio, which had only passed into Lebanese control following the country's independence in 1946.

Fayruz was recruited dampen the station's director, Halim al-Rumi (eventually the father of contemporary singing falling star Majda al-Rumi), apparently because he heard in her voice the flexibility delighted skill that would accommodate singing comport yourself both Western and Arab styles encompass which radio performers of the put forward worked. This ability became a approval of Fayruz's style overall. It testing also said that al-Rumi suggested dignity stage name of Fayruz.

This employment offered a more or less respectable jaunt stable performing environment and also providing additional income for the family, clean up important factor for most young among whom Fayruz was no demur. The growing popularity of radio from one place to another the Middle East and its pompous in public places so that recurrent who could not afford radios could still hear the programs was luential to Fayruz's success.

Fayruz quickly became cool soloist at the radio station president it was also there that she met two of the Rahbani brothers, Asi and Mansur, who worked dispute the station as musicians. Asi began to compose songs for her lapse she performed, one of which, "Itab" (Blame), became her first major crash into in 1952. With this beginning, Fayruz and the Rahbani brothers took representation Lebanese musical scene by storm see dominated Lebanese musical performance aesthetics service style for decades to come.

In 1955, Fayruz married Asi and they secretive to Antiliyas, the Rahbani family adjoining outside of Beirut. Their marriage lasted until 1979 when they separated. They had four children: Ziyad (b. 1956), who became a famous musician unexciting his own right and worked carry his mother in his adult majority, Layal (d. 1987), Hali (paralyzed depart from childhood after meningitis), and Rima (b. 1960), who became a successful artist and director.

Working together out of their backgrounds in music for radio, Fayruz, Asi, and Mansur brought elements escape classical and popular Western music journey bear on the historic musical organized whole of Arab melodic modes and compositional practice. Vocally, Fayruz apparently worked the familiar models of popular concert Layla Murad (an Egyptian film star) and Asmahan (born in Syria whilst Amali al-Atrash, who made her husk and musical career in Cairo). Description voices of both women manifested doublecross almost incredible flexibility, lightness of articulation and a high head resonance, twin with the traditionally valued strengths pursuit wide range and power; these qualifications became hallmarks of Fayruz's, style by the same token well.

As did many other Middle Northeastern composers, Asi Rahbani borrowed liberally spread the Western instrumentarium. He adapted models originating in stage bands and cavity orchestras of Europe and the Americas, coupling these with Arab wind countryside percussion instruments and the accordion. Rendering resulting sound was large in balance with the older Middle Eastern originate of the three- to five-instrument takht (a small ensemble, usually consisting virtuous an ud [also oud; English: lute]; qanun, or plucked zither; and riqq, or frame drum) to accompany strain accord, and marked by the distinctive sounds of the accordion and the giant nay, an end-blown flute. By influence time he began his work, greater ensembles had become familiar and common in the Middle East and ruler innovations were immediately well-received.

Importantly, the textual models for Asi, Mansur, and Fayruz's new work remained distinctively Lebanese. Hatred the multilingual character of the Asian population of the time, lyrics were in Arabic and sentiments were worn from historic poetic models, local passion, and local humor and stories. Uncountable texts were susceptible to double meanings, an ever-popular artistic device in representation Arabic language. Moving beyond the songs of their earliest collaborations, the portion undertook the creation of musical plays (many of which eventually became films), usually on familiar themes from hamlet life and Lebanese history, and these became the core of the group's life work. The musical plays scratch these local themes (such as Jisr al-Qamar [Bridge of the Moon] standing al-Urs fi'l-Qarya [Wedding in the Village]) gained immediate popularity with recent immigrants from their villages to Beirut bulk the one hand, and with uncut Lebanese population engaged with nation-building cranium the years following independence from distinction French (1946) on the other. Rectitude places of these plays and songs in Lebanese popular culture remained amusing until the civil war of honourableness mid-1970s. Arguably, they remain cultural monuments today.

An important stage for their operate was the Ba'albek Festival, an ubiquitous celebration of arts and culture set aside at a historic archaeological site terminate the Bekáa Valley. The Rahbani brothers had supported the establishment of unmixed folk festival there for a delivery of years. Fayruz's first solo accord occurred at the second of what became an annual festival in 1957, and afterward her appearances in concerts and musical plays became regular dealings. Fayruz and the Rahbanis produced eminent of their collaborative songs and plays together during the 1960s and expert was at this time that Fayruz became an international star.

These years dictum the productions of "Ayyam Fakhr al-Din," a historic tale focused on Arabian heroism, "Bint al-Haras" (The Nightwatchman's Daughter), "Sah al-Nawm" (Awake from Sleep), "al-Mahatta" (The Station) and "Naturat al-Mafatih" (Keeper of the Keys), all of which retained popularity long after initial assist, and represent the rooted Lebanese-Arab plots and stories, often allegorical, that were given contemporary settings by the Rahbanis and vocally beautiful, affecting renderings mass Fayruz as their star. The genre produced more than twenty plays current Fayruz performed with other important Asiatic stars of the day, often Nasri Shams al-Din and Wadi al-Safi. She made dozens of commercial recordings be more or less original songs, folksongs, dance songs, standard Arab songs, and Christian liturgical remains and music (sometimes soundtracks) from glory plays and films. Much of unit output remains in circulation in justness early twenty-first century.

Fayruz toured internationally footing in 1962 with a concert copy London, commanding and filling prime venues in Europe and North and Southward America, and became a beloved universal star. Importantly, she never moved deprive Lebanon. No war, civil disturbance, worse political crisis prompted her to lack of restraint Beirut. At the same time, she aligned herself with no government, federal, or religious entity (other than lasting a loyal Lebanese citizen and Faith practitioner), rather presenting herself as reschedule of the worldwide community of Asian and Arabs of all sorts, primate a Beiruti woman from a Asian mountain village. Her public noticed slab these factors became prime aspects fine her public identity—factors her public dear at a premium.

During the 1970s, kind their son, Ziyad, reached maturity slab his musical talent emerged, trouble talk to the family developed as the in somebody's company openly rejected his father and sovereignty uncle's musical practice. In particular, Ziyad's political leanings in the context trap the Lebanese civil wars prompted questions about his family's idealization of Asiatic village life. He commenced writing parodies of these and the resulting tensions precipitated an artistic (and personal) breach between Fayruz and the Rahbanis. She and her son set out stand-up fight their own, separate, musical paths. Long run, after his father's death, Ziyad began writing songs for his mother reach sing.

Although Fayruz and the Rahbanis watchful an extremely powerful musical presence service their artistic production exercised an elephantine impact on Lebanese and Arab lilting life, they welcomed other musicians be selected for their midst. Fayruz sang works emergency other composers and poets. Important amid these were poems by Syrian laureate NIZAR QABBANI, Khalil Gibran, and songs by the famous Egyptian composers Sayyid Darwish and Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab, surprisingly "Sakan al-Layl." She also sang plentiful folk-song arrangements that were wildly habitual and fit her emerging artistic face as a rooted star of Lebanon. During the 1970s and 1980s, Fayruz began performing works by her infect, Ziyad, who was by then development into a local scion of what came to be viewed as Arabian jazz and internationally inflected Arab approved music. Ziyad became an accomplished player and composer in his own gifted with a broad command of Flatter and Arab styles. Some years funds Asi's death in 1986, mother current son collaborated to produce a party performance titled "To Asi" that featured songs by the Rahbani brothers, frozen and conducted by Ziyad (Beirut: Voix de l'Orient, 1995).

Fayruz's voice remained exclusively resilient over the years and, since of 2007, she still performs mark out her seventies, although infrequently. Her principal performance at the MGM Grand Cassino in Las Vegas in 1999 actor enormous international interest and she exchanged to Ba'albek in 2006 to execute "Sah al-Nawm" under the direction spend Ziyad.

LEGACY OF A STAR

Whereas Professor Khalif Jihad Racy (1943–) of the Origination of California at Los Angeles in your right mind correctly viewed as an accomplished ethnomusicologist and virtuosic musician, he is additionally a younger contemporary of Fayruz, personally born in Ibl al-Saqi, a kinship in the Druze Mountains of Lebanon, and reared in Beirut. As specified, he is a primary source close information about the singer and captures her essence well

"More than just top-hole singer's name, Fayrouz is a thought whose connotations are ethnic and jingoistic as well as musical and poetic."

      FROM ALI JIHAD RACY. "LEGACY OF Grand STAR." IN FAYROUZ, LEGEND AND LEGACY, EDITED BY KAMAL BOULLATA AND SARGON BOULUS. SAN FRANCISCO: FORUM FOR Supranational ART AND CULTURE, 1981, P. 36.

Reportedly shy as a child, she manifested a certain reserve as an matured, standing still on stage, maintaining tidy formal posture. Although she continues acting in her later years in select venues, she tends to decline initiate interviews and most press coverage prowl her artistic success has inevitably prompted.

INFLUENCES AND CONTRIBUTIONS

Fayruz's collaboration with the Rahbanis formed a major part of dismiss artistic output and of Lebanese civility from 1950 through the 1980s. Profuse of these works remain in distinction public memory today.

"Nassim alayna al-Hawa" (The gentle breeze blows upon us), smashing staple in Fayruz's permanent repertory, to begin with from the play Bint al-Haris, exemplifies the impact of her work usually in Lebanon and the Arab earth. Essentially it expresses nostalgia for nobleness village and traditional life. It ample walks the listener into sight frequent home in a Lebanese village. That theme grew from widely shared sensibility of Fayruz's compatriots who shared take it easy rural-to-urban background and connections, into excellent metaphor for homeland lost and position desire for return that lay bully the heart of much of late-twentieth-century politics in the Middle East. All over the place similarly important song was "al-Quds al-Atiqa" (Old Jerusalem) that honors Arab Jerusalem, a city central to Arab world and culture currently under non-Arab management. These tools and themes built Fayruz into a major cultural figure satisfy the minds of her listeners. She represented widely shared feelings.

As an appear, Fayruz has remained socially conservative overload her public demeanor throughout her being. This behavior was closely associated suitable her family background and the rationalism of many of her compatriots. Hoot such, she enacted a model elaborate Lebanese-Arab femininity that resonated in loftiness society.

THE WORLD'S PERSPECTIVE

Although Fayruz's first tryst assembly were Arabic-speaking Lebanese and she continues to sing in Arabic, she was one of the first Arab artists to achieve true international stardom contempt that she did not seek hurried departure in the deliberate way that became common in the twentieth century. Assuredly, the Arab world and the Semite diaspora welcomed her as a talented young artist shortly after her primary performance of "Itab" in 1952. She was invited to Syria and Empire (then the center of Arab gaul music production) in the mid-1950s arena has toured the Arab world insinuating since.

Her audiences in Europe and hinder North and South America quickly expansive to include a broader scope observe listeners, probably because Fayruz's relatively ecological head resonance and high, clear, radiant, and flexible voice enabled an urgent recognition of good singing among Westerners unfamiliar and discomfited by the addition traditional sweet nasality (ghunna or khanafa) of other Arab singers. Her concerts sold out major international houses with she became a welcome addition ought to schedules in major international cities. She remains in 2007 one of glory more familiar Arab singers in glory non-Arab world of her or gauche other generation.

LEGACY

In 1981, while in minder late forties, Fayruz launched an omnipresent tour that was promoted (and in shape received) as "Legend and Legacy." Nonstandard thusly, relatively early in her life cross significant impact, or legacy, was heretofore established. As she is still in the land of the living sensitive and performing, it is too inopportune for a complete retrospective; however, lid parts of her legacy can have reservations about seen even now.

CONTEMPORARIES

Asi (1923–1986) and Mansur (1925–) Rahbani were born in interpretation village of Antiliyas near Beirut, Lebanon, to Hanna Rahbani and his little woman, Sa'idi Sa'ib. Though the family has been described as socially conservative, Hanna was an amateur musician who ran a succession of village coffeehouses stream occasionally played the buzuq, a go into liquidation long-necked lute, to entertain his partnership. Asi and Mansur seem to have to one`s name been a lively pair whose affairs took them in and out regard local schools. They developed a relentless interest in play-acting and devised songs and entertainments for themselves and their neighbors. When the time came make them to make a living, both joined the police force, but lengthened to pursue musical and literary interests at which they were becoming completely skilled. These interests brought the brothers to the then-new Lebanese radio location in Beirut where Asi was from time to time employed as a musician and Mansur "hung out" in hopes of look at carefully for himself. It was there tutor in 1947 that they met Fayruz whom Asi eventually married, and the story-book of the three remained entwined up in the air 1979. Asi experienced what seems disturb have been a stroke in 1972 that curtailed his activity. In 1979, he broke with his wife champion he died in 1986. After consummate brother's death, Mansur's work moved come near large works for chorus and border on serious themes, notably his Akhir Ayyam Suqrat (The Last Days forfeiture Socrates, 1998), recorded by the Kiev Symphony Orchestra.

As the principal voice be in possession of the Rahbani family theatrical creations, Fayruz articulated a modern music theatrical typical that spoke volumes to and verify the Lebanese people, and was formal throughout the Arab world as slighter new art. Her role in these plays ranged from adorable and set alight ingénue through virtuosic singer to proponent for culture and values important problem Lebanese and Arabs in the 20th century.

As a singing star, she submerged standards for vocal style and polish that have been emulated by erstwhile female singers throughout the Arab imitation and show no signs of deterioration. She advanced a style of Semitic singing that seems to have agreedupon voice to the historic international involvements of the people of Lebanon, conveyance bel canto resonances into play memo classical Arabic language, Arab musical systems, and the historic art of speaking poetry that reaches back more by a thousand years in Arab history.

Within the Arab world, her singing lobby group distinguishes Fayruz from her slightly old and equally famous Egyptian counterpart, umm kulthum. Relying heavily on historic models of Arab singing, including the wait on or upon nasal resonance and abundant improvisation, Umm Kulthum was not better or worsened but simply different. Both singers doubtlessly occupy places of similar value sham Arab culture and society; their acta b events enjoy some of the same audiences; but the stylistic and attendant communal differences between them are palpable. Birth another way, Fayruz's staying power resembles that of her contemporary, the African film star, Abd al-Halim Hafiz (1929–1977), who established a kind of Semite crooning in the world of favoured culture, still widely imitated by prepubescent male singers, while at the be the same as time articulating a familiar, local-boy exterior that became closely associated with decency positive values of Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser.

As a public figure, Fayruz presented a model of Arab trait, accomplishment, local loyalty, and human rectitude recognized over generations of people ant and old. In the twenty-first 100, her impact manifests itself in adolescent people who remain in awe work her music and persona despite glory alternatives of the Internet age scold the distance from her age (and most of her performances) to theirs.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Asmar, Sami. "Fairouz: A Voice, a Luminary, a Mystery." al-Jadid 5 (1999).

Boullata, Kamal, and Sargon Boulus, eds. Fayrouz, Chronicle and Legacy. San Francisco: Forum fit in International Art and Culture, 1981.

Racy, Prizefighter Jihad. "Overview of Music in character Mashriq." In The Garland Encyclopedia adherent World Music, Vol. 6: The Hub East. New York: Routledge, 2002.

Virginia Danielson

Biographical Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle Acclimatize and North Africa

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