Is there a doctor in the house? Good because I needed a photographer to accompany me to an event! Dr. Ahmed Shaaban came along and did a very good job. Thank you, Does that make him a Photoyologist? He might be… I know because I saw the photos on the spot, but you never will! You see, he couldn't find his camera and we had to borrow one but later we realized that this camera has a virus! None of us was really willing to take the risk of having his computer infected with something that Dr. Ahmed might not be able to cure. Thank you anyway doctor. Forget it and let's talk about the event, which was s press conference followed by a concert. It was organized by the American Embassy and a foundation called Share the Mic, which I probably shouldn't say much about – I really want to write a full story about it soon. However, they are very active and they are the same people who brought over to Cairo that excellent gospel group in August of last year. I of course have to say that Nile Promotions played a major role in this as well. Titled “Sing Egyptian Women” this event was the finale of a program with the same name. On that evening, Thursday, April 5, the results were announced. To explain the concept I will use two parts of an email I received late in March from Manal N. Rezkalla, Press Specialist at the embassy – “Over the past two months, thousands of Egyptians have voted in support of the incredibly talented Egyptian women participating in the program, empowering them to share their inspiring voices with the world. The participants themselves have taken part in workshops on leadership, marketing, and music, and performed in Cairo and other cities across Egypt. Voting is ongoing for the top three contestants”. The second part read “The winner will then travel to New York City and record in a professional recording studio, representing the talent, views, and determination of Egyptian women on the world stage”. Sending an Egyptian female singer to the States to record a song must be enough to thrill any gifted young newcomer. So the press conference was a few minutes late and some of us were curious to know why the jury had only one professional musician – Dr. Neveen Allouba. However we were told that other jury members do have an impressive musical background but this was not mentioned in the info we could access. Actually one of them, Kevin Patrick co-founder of Share the Mic, worked with some impressive acts including Gladys Knight and Blondie. I of course asked him for the number of Blondie's gorgeous singer Debbie Harry, but he didn't give it to me. Now it's time to tell you that an impressive guest was there that day – the beautiful American Grammy-nominated singer Maiysha, who joined the press conference and I of course asked her for her number but didn't get it as well! It seems I'm not as charming as I thought. This is one of the very few press conferences I have attended in my life. I hate them because many people ask meaningless questions and then almost everybody writes the same thing in their publication. Nevertheless, it was fun. When it was over we were handed one voucher each, to get a free soft drink. I expected a bag of potato chips! We then went up on the roof where the concert/party was. Out of the numerous contestants from various Egyptian cities the three finalists were Maggie Fikry, Malak El Husseiny and Nathalie Alain and this is the order they performed in. Before they did, Yasmin Tayeby of Nile Promotions entertained the crowd with two rock tracks as she sang and played the guitar. She was accompanied by a band and I did like her singing. Maggie gave an excellent rendition of “And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going” from the musical “Dreamgirls”. Frankly I was impressed. This is a very hard number to sing and she did the job. Then it was time for a thrilling performance by guest star Nesma Mahgoub, winner of last year's Star Academy. She sang “All that Jazz” from the musical “Chicago” and didn't only sound like a real veteran jazz songstress but also looked like one. The second contestant, Malak, was next and she gave us another song from another musical – “Feeling Good” from “The Roar of the Greasepaint - The Smell of the Crowd”. It was quite nice. One of the evening's highlights was when Maiysha sang her lovely track “Alchemy” to pre-recorded music. She's got a soulful voice as well as a beautiful smile and charismatic stage presence. It was time for Nathalie, the final contestant, to sing the very popular “Sway”. Her choice surprised me because it's a very easy number to sing. It seems she knew it all along and so to make it up she tried to impress everyone with additional vocal acrobats and unfortunately was out of key twice. Nesma went on stage again to sing Whitney Houston's version of the epic “I Will Always Love You” and finally the Arabic song “Ma Hada Beya'bi” (No One Can Fill My Heart) originally recorded by Majda El-Roomy. She was simply marvelous on both numbers. Is there any style this girl can't sing amazingly? In one word “WOW”. Maiysha returned to perform the final track before the winner's name was announced and she gave us America. This is exactly how I felt that moment. Then the very same lady was joined on stage by the three finalists and she opened the envelope to end the anticipation. And the winner is… Nathalie. Thousands have been voting for quite some time and she got more votes than the other two contestants. Only meters away from the stage I saw her mother crying tears of joy. To wrap the evening up, the three finalists were joined by other contestants who were ruled out of the competition at earlier stages and they all provided backing vocals to Maiysha as she sang Chaka Khan's “I'm Every Woman”. Lovely song, lovely performance and lovely spirit as well. Now where is my free soft drink? Send me Maiysha's number to: [email protected]
