Musical band and poetry recitation group join to celebrate Haddad, Jahin and Darwish CAIRO: Last Friday the British Council in Agouza hosted an inspiring Ramadan evening. A few hundred people were thrilled by a poetry recital of the works of late great poets Fouad Haddad and Salah Jahin merged with Sayed Darwish s musical masterpieces and songs, all brought to life on stage by their grandchildren. The outstanding one-hour performance was given by El-Sharei poetry recitation group and the Eskendrella music band. "Three years ago we held our first performance that honored the works of Jahin and Haddad and the music of Darwish and the response from the mostly young audience was amazing, Nairy Avedissian, arts manager at the British Council, says. So it was a natural choice for us to again present their work for the first of our Ramadan performances. The show started with a Darwish musical overture, followed by a number of poetry recitations. A kind of internal connection was evident between poetry and music as every few poems were tunefully followed by a song or a piece of music that added to the ones preceding them and prepared the audience for the next. The performance ended with the famous patriotic song Omm ya Masry (Come on Egyptian) that stimulated the audience to sing enthusiastically along with the performers. At first we wanted to create a skeleton for the performance. But afterwards we found it quite a difficult job as each of the three artists has his own identity. So we focused on the general mood of the performance, explains Amin Haddad, the late Fouad Haddad s son and an El-Sharei member. Poems and songs performed during the evening were carefully selected to echo the bitter reality Egyptians and Arabs are currently enduring. Most of the songs and poems featured a patriotic tone, political projection or description of the simple life of ordinary Egyptians. These creative people - who witnessed defeats and victories - always lived with hope of a better tomorrow, Haddad says. Their poems, which were written years ago, are still applicable to all ages. This combination between Darwish and Haddad and Jahin, though risky, contributed to the deep Egyptian spirit of the performance, says Sahar El-Mougy, writer and lecturer of English literature at Cairo University. Despite the sad tone of the two poets, their words do echo the pulse of resistance. Both Eskenderella and El-Sharei harmoniously complement each other when they share the same performance. There are mutual members between the two groups. So all the time we think of the two as one, explains Haddad. Founded in 2005, Eskenderella consists of five players who play oud (lute), keyboard, oriental percussion and contrabass. The band primarily presents the works of Darwish and Sheikh Imam in their original forms, but the band has recently started to include some of their own productions in their performances. El-Sharei started presenting the works of the two legendary late Egyptian poets Haddad and Jahin in 2000. The group basically performs a combination of poetry and songs that vary between traditional poetry recitation and dramatization. The British Council is holding another Ramadan evening on Friday, October 13 at 9 p.m., featuring Nagham Masry music band. Admission is free.
