19 January, 2014

The Sharjah World Music Festival concluded yesterday (Saturday) with a concert by Jordanian singer Macadi Nahhas and the Oriental Jazz Band. The four-day festival, organised by Al Qasba, Sharjah’s premier leisure destination, in collaboration with Furat Qaddouri Music Center, featured live performances by an elite group of award-winning Arab and international musicians.

The final evening of Sharjah World Music Festival was attended by Sheikha Bodour bint Sultan Al Qasimi, Chairperson of Sharjah Investment and Development Authority (Shurooq) and a number of prominent figures and members of the media.

Macadi Nahhas expressed her delight at visiting Sharjah, which she likes and had visited several times for its beauty, calmness and warm atmospheres that give visitors the chance to contemplate and think. She stressed that her participation in the first edition of the Sharjah World Music festival was a source of pleasure as it gave her a chance to visit Sharjah again and entertain her audience with some of her songs and communicate with her fans in the UAE.

Singing about love, Palestinian ordeals, and her Arab nation, Nahhas Macadi performed a medley of Syrian, Iraqi and Jordanian songs. She kicked off the night with the romantic song ‘Nataly’, whose lyrics were writing by Syrian actor Husam Tahseen Beek for his wife.

Moving on from the Syrian love story to the Palestinian Catastrophe, Nahhas performed an enthusiastic rendition of the Palestinian song ‘Yamma Ween Al Hawa’, which narrates the ordeal of the Palestinian people, followed by the song ‘Hatha Alhelo Katlni Ya Ammah’, inspired by the Iraqi heritage.

She then performed ‘Ya Khai Goul La'oumi Wala Tegoul Lakhouy’, a song from Jordan, her homeland that describes the traditional way in which marriage took place in the past. Turning from heritage songs to patriotic ones, Nahhas performed another Iraqi song ‘Sagheera Kunt Wa Int Sgheroun’, and then the patriotic ‘Ya Dhalam AlSijn Khayyem’, which was written by Syrian poet Najeeb Al Rais in 1922. The song, which has become one of the most popular patriotic songs in many Arab countries, tells stories about the Arab struggle against foreign colonialism.

As Lebanese sensation Fairouz has always been her muse, Nahhas performed three of her songs, including ‘Ana Lahabibi’, ‘Ahwak Bela Amal’ and ‘Sahar Al Layali’, to great interaction and applause from the audience. Nahhas continued her night with a song from the Syrian heritage, and then another song from Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates, as she entertained the Iraqi community with ‘Al Khala Shako’, also inspired by the Iraqi heritage.

In her final performance for the evening, Nahhas performed the Palestinian song ‘Ammai Yabo Al Fanoos’, drawing the curtains on the Sharjah World Music Festival.

The live performances of the festival received great attention from the large audience of residents and visitors who watched the concerts that were held at Masrah Al Qasba-Theatre, as well as the two outdoor stages, amid an impressive interest from local and Arab media.  

The festival saw the participation of an elite group of top world musicians, including Iraqi musician and composer Naseer Shamma, one of the world’s most distinguished Oud players, Sitar maestro Ashraf Sharif Khan, Lebanese performer Jahida Wehbe, internationally acclaimed Qanoun player Furat Qaddori, Chilean Flamenco guitarist Vicente Allende, and the European Fusion Band.

On the sidelines of the music festival, a Bazaar was held on Al Qasba’s walkways to give visitors and music lovers a chance to treat themselves to a little something from a large collection of unusual clothing and goods, fashion jewellery and accessories.