Amal Choucri Catta previews December highlights December is a month of soulful festivity, what with magnificent music coinciding with the long-awaited relief from summer heat. Three days ago the 12th Arabic Music Festival (1-10 December) opened, gracing all five Cairo Opera House venues. The opening on Monday was an appropriately grand event presided over by Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni during which many worthy names were honoured: Baligh Hamdi, Sayed Mekkawi, Salah Jahine, Nagat, Omar Khairat, Reda Ragab, Nadia Abdel-Aziz, Mohamed Mahmoud Abdel-Aal, Ahmed Bakker and Fares Halim Malaaeb. The festival lives up to expectations, with a rich and varied programme featuring 18 singers, 15 solo players and 12 orchestras representing nine countries -- Syria, Lebanon, Tunisia, Turkey, Morocco, Kuwait, Iraq, Palestine as well as Egypt -- and supplying a total of 26 performances. Of these nine are taking place in the Cairo Opera main hall, eight in the small hall, three at the Institute of Arabic Music, one at the Gumhouriya Theatre and five at the Alexandria Conference Centre. A total of 22 countries (including Canada, Germany, France, England, Greece, the Emirates, Algeria, Sudan, Oman, Bahrain, Libya, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar) are contributing to the festival's various conferences, with qualified speakers putting forth on issues like foreign influences on Arabic music and the aims and methods of musical education. The festival also provides for an international oud forum, with festival founder and general secretary Ratiba El-Hifni presenting some of the most accomplished oud soloists practising today: the Iraqi Omar Bashir, the Moroccan Said Al-Sharaibi, the Lebanese Sharbel Rouhana and the Egyptian Mamdouh El-Guebali, for one group, will give a concert entitled My oud and I at the Institute of Arabic Music on 6 December. At the small hall oud lovers will enjoy a performance by the Lebanese virtuoso Mahmoud Turkmai and a meeting between Al-Sharaibi and the Egyptian soloist Hazem Shahin. Oud highlights also include a recital by the Turkish soloist Osman Yurdal Tockan and a duet with El-Guebali and Modather Abul-Wafa. The oud is a fretted string instrument plucked by the fingers or a plectrum; the so called long lute, a version of the instrument whose neck is slightly longer than its body, dates back to 2000 BC, while the "short" variety, with a short neck and long body, began to appear around 1800 BC. As the European lute, the instrument was widespread in 14th-century Spain, from where it spread to the rest of southern and eventually northern Europe. In the 16th and 17th centuries it became the principal domestic instrument in Europe, and many varieties of it were produced. At present in the Arab world the oud is considered "the envoy of Arabic music", and its practitioners tend to be among the most widely respected musicians. Of the aforementioned names, Omar Bashir is the son of an even more renowned oud player, Mounir Bashir. Born in Budapest in 1970, he started playing at the age of five, and only two years later enrolled at the Baghdad Music School. More recently Bashir formed his own 24-member orchestra, specialising in Iraqi folklore and giving successful concerts throughout the Arab world. He is also well-known for his delightful recitals, both with his father and as a soloist. In 1991 Bashir returned to Budapest, where he joined the prestigious Franz Liszt Academy. While El-Guebali remains arguably the most distinguished of the lot -- a soloist in the Umm Kulthoum Ensemble for Arabic music, he composed several pieces and was repeatedly awarded -- it is Tockan who most clearly deserves the adjunct of "innovator". Adapting the Turkish heritage to modern-day modifications of the instrument, he has created his own distinct and profoundly appealing style. Tockan was born in 1966, he was a lecturer at the ITV Turkish Music Academy from 1989 to 1997 and he founded several ensemble and participated in numerous festivals. Rouhana is among the most popular masters of the Arab oud, and has undertaken extensive research in teaching oud playing. He released numerous albums and composed for the Lebanese Caracalla Ballet; one of these compositions, Alissa, Queen of Carthage, was performed at the Cairo Opera House Main Hall several years ago. He took part in numerous festivals and won first prize at the Japanese Herayama Competition. Said to be "one of the five best oud players ever", Sharaibi was born in Morocco in 1951. He composed over 200 pieces and undertook significant research comparing Arab, Persian and Andalusian maqamat. Though one of the Cairo Opera's more prestigious annual events, and thus a more significant occasion than most, the Arabic Music Festival is not the only highlight of the musical calendar this month. Among other events taking place at the main hall is a concert by the Chinese Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra (6 December), conducted by Yu Long and presenting work by Saint-Saens, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovitch, with soloist Ahmed Abu Zahra -- one of Egypt's most remarkable pianists. A resident of Germany, Abu Zahra was frequently applauded at the main hall both as a soloist and in the company of his wife, Hungarian pianist Nora Emödy. Founded in 1957, for its part, the Guangzhou was one of the earliest ensembles to emerge after the establishment of New China. The orchestra has given many successful concerts in and outside China and has to its name an impressive symphonic repertoire. Under guest conductor Johannes Wildner the Cairo Symphony Orchestra presents Mozart's Symphony No.31 in D-Major, KV 297/300a, otherwise known as The Paris Symphony, and Mahler's first symphony in D-major, The Titan. Wildner was enthusiastically applauded at the main hall on two previous occasions as the head of Viennese symphonists, and there is much to expect from his happy marriage with the Symphony Orchestra. The audience can also look forward to three gala concerts, two of which celebrate Christmas, with the Cairo Opera Orchestra conducted by Nader Abbasi and Nayer Nagui and accompanied by the opera's lyric ensemble with soloists Reda El-Wakil, Iman Mustafa, Hanan El- Guindi and Nevine Allouba, among others. Jihan Mursi's well-known decor -- star-studded backdrops, glittering Yuletide trees and shiny bells -- will place the cherished Christmas carols on offer in an appropriate context. And since Le Figaro described the Cairo Opera's Christmas concerts (17 December-7 January) as the most impressive in the entire Middle East, these should be joyful events indeed. Celebrating the Three Kings and Coptic Christmas as well, the Cairo Opera will provide its audience with Tchaikovsky's time-honoured Nutcracker, the only well-known ballet with an ever-present Christmas tree on stage. Joyful tidings do not yet end, however. As is the case in many opera houses around the world, including Paris and Vienna, 2003 will close with a stupendous New Year Concert presenting waltzes and polkas by Johann Strauss junior and senior, Joseph Lanner and Franz Lehar, arias from famous operettas and a decidedly festive stage, with the musicians themselves appearing in celebratory masks and hats. This is one night that makes a full house every year: last year it had to be repeated the next day in the main hall and the day after in Alexandria. Introduced to Cairo a few years ago by Ahmed El-Saedi, the New Year Concert has become the opera's most popular event of all. Happy December... For concert details see Listings
