Umm Kulthum

Umm Kulthum PDF Author: Laura Lohman
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
ISBN: 0819570737
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
How an extraordinary woman shaped her career and legacy through war In 1967 Egypt and the Arab world suffered a devastating defeat by Israel in the Six-Day War. Though long past the age at which most singers would have retired, the sexagenarian Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum launched a multifaceted response to the defeat that not only sustained her career, but also expanded her international fame and shaped her legacy. By examining biographies, dramas, monuments, radio programming practices, and recent recordings, Laura Lohman delves into Umm Kulth m's role in fashioning her image and the conflicting ways that her image and music have been interpreted since her death in 1975.

Umm Kulthum

Umm Kulthum PDF Author: Laura Lohman
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
ISBN: 0819570737
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Get Book Here

Book Description
How an extraordinary woman shaped her career and legacy through war In 1967 Egypt and the Arab world suffered a devastating defeat by Israel in the Six-Day War. Though long past the age at which most singers would have retired, the sexagenarian Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum launched a multifaceted response to the defeat that not only sustained her career, but also expanded her international fame and shaped her legacy. By examining biographies, dramas, monuments, radio programming practices, and recent recordings, Laura Lohman delves into Umm Kulth m's role in fashioning her image and the conflicting ways that her image and music have been interpreted since her death in 1975.

"The Voice of Egypt"

Author: Virginia Danielson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226136086
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description
Umm Kulthum, the "voice of Egypt," was the most celebrated musical performer of the century in the Arab world. More than twenty years after her death, her devoted audience, drawn from all strata of Arab society, still numbers in the millions. Thanks to her skillful and pioneering use of mass media, her songs still permeate the international airwaves. In the first English-language biography of Umm Kulthum, Virginia Danielson chronicles the life of a major musical figure and the confluence of artistry, society, and creativity that characterized her remarkable career. Danielson examines the careful construction of Umm Kulthum's phenomenal popularity and success in a society that discouraged women from public performance. From childhood, her mentors honed her exceptional abilities to accord with Arab and Muslim practice, and as her stature grew, she remained attentive to her audience and the public reception of her work. Ultimately, she created from local precendents and traditions her own unique idiom and developed original song styles from both populist and neo-classical inspirations. These were enthusiastically received, heralded as crowning examples of a new, yet authentically Arab-Egyptian, culture. Danielson shows how Umm Kulthum's music and public personality helped form popular culture and contributed to the broader artistic, societal, and political forces that surrounded her. This richly descriptive account joins biography with social theory to explore the impact of the individual virtuoso on both music and society at large while telling the compelling story of one of the most famous musicians of all time. "She is born again every morning in the heart of 120 million beings. In the East a day without Umm Kulthum would have no color."—Omar Sharif

The Hidden Treasure

The Hidden Treasure PDF Author: Jaffer Ladak
Publisher: Sun Behind the Cloud Publications Limited
ISBN: 9781908110008
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
Lady Umm Kulthum (s) was the fourth child born to Imam Ali (a) and Lady Fatima (s). She spent her life serving seven Infallibles, and witnessed crucial moments that changed the landscape of Islam forever: from her mother's sermon about Fadak, to the terrible calamities on the plains of Kerbala. Despite this, her name has been mentioned only occasionally in the books of history. Controversies over her existence and marriage to the second caliph, Umar al-Khattab, have overshadowed discussions on her noble characteristics, and the crucial role she played in the unfolding of Islamic History. From the libraries of Damascus to Beirut, Jaffer Ladak has spent two years investigating and evaluating historical resources and scholarly opinions, to piece together what is known about her life. The Hidden Treasure is her first published biography. It seeks to address these issues and restore Lady Umm Kulthum (s) to her rightful place in the hearts of those who love the Ahlul Bayt (a).

The Band's Visit

The Band's Visit PDF Author:
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
ISBN: 1540032744
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 147

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Book Description
(Vocal Selections). Winner of the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Musical, The Band's Visit is a musical adaptation of the 2007 Israeli film of the same name. This vocal selections folio features 11 vocal line arrangements with piano accompaniment composed by David Yazbek: Answer Me * The Beat of Your Heart * Haled's Song About Love * It Is What It Is * Itzik's Lullaby * Omar Sharif * Papi Hears the Ocean * Something Different * Soraya * Waiting * Welcome to Nowhere.

Midnight in Cairo: The Divas of Egypt's Roaring '20s

Midnight in Cairo: The Divas of Egypt's Roaring '20s PDF Author: Raphael Cormack
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393541142
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
A vibrant portrait of the talented and entrepreneurial women who defined an era in Cairo. One of the world’s most multicultural cities, twentieth-century Cairo was a magnet for the ambitious and talented. During the 1920s and ’30s, a vibrant music, theater, film, and cabaret scene flourished, defining what it meant to be a “modern” Egyptian. Women came to dominate the Egyptian entertainment industry—as stars of the stage and screen but also as impresarias, entrepreneurs, owners, and promoters of a new and strikingly modern entertainment industry. Raphael Cormack unveils the rich histories of independent, enterprising women like vaudeville star Rose al-Youssef (who launched one of Cairo’s most important newspapers); nightclub singer Mounira al-Mahdiyya (the first woman to lead an Egyptian theater company) and her great rival, Oum Kalthoum (still venerated for her soulful lyrics); and other fabulous female stars of the interwar period, a time marked by excess and unheard-of freedom of expression. Buffeted by crosswinds of colonialism and nationalism, conservatism and liberalism, “religious” and “secular” values, patriarchy and feminism, this new generation of celebrities offered a new vision for women in Egypt and throughout the Middle East.

Cigarette Number Seven

Cigarette Number Seven PDF Author: Donia Kamal
Publisher: American University in Cairo Press
ISBN: 1617978426
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 142

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Book Description
As a child, Nadia was left her with her grandparents in Egypt, while her mother sought work in the Gulf. Decades later, she looks back on her fragmented childhood from an uncertain present: it is 2011 and the streets have erupted in an unexpected revolution. Her activist father, the sole anchor in her life, encourages her to be a part of the protests and so Nadia joins the sit-in at Tahrir Square. Donia Kamal's succinct, candid prose draw us into Nadia's world: from the private to the public; from the men she has loved and lost, to her participation in the momentous events of the Egyptian revolution. Stunning in its simplicity, Cigarette Number Seven is a deeply intimate novel about family and relationships in turbulent times.

Images of Enchantment

Images of Enchantment PDF Author: Sherifa Zuhur
Publisher: American Univ in Cairo Press
ISBN: 9789774244674
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
This original and multidimensional book brings a refreshing new approach to the study of the arts of the Middle East. By dealing in one volume with dance, music, painting, and cinema, as experienced and practiced not only within the Middle East but also abroad, Images of Enchantment breaks down the artificial distinctions--of form, geography, 'high' and 'low' art, performer and artist--that are so often used to delineate the subjects and processes of Middle Eastern artistic culture. The eighteen essays in this book cover themes as diverse as Bedouin dance, the music of Arab Americans, cinema in Egypt and Iran, Hollywood representations of the Middle East, and contemporary Sudanese painting. The contributions come from scholars and critics and from the artists themselves. Together, they present a wide-ranging and holistic view of the arts in their social, political, anthropological, and gender contexts. Contributors: Walter Armbrust, Farida Ben Lyazid, Kay Hardy Campbell, Virginia Danielson, Marjorie Franken, Sondra Hale, Carolee Kent, Hamid Naficy, Salwa Mikdadi Nashashibi, Anne K. Rasmussen, Selim Sednaoui, Simon Shaheen, Rebecca Stone, Chaïbia Talal, Karin Van Nieuwkerk, William Young, Sherifa Zuhur.

Inside Arabic Music

Inside Arabic Music PDF Author: Johnny Farraj
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019065838X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 481

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Book Description
What makes hundreds of listeners cheer ecstatically at the same instant during a live concert by Egyptian diva Umm Kulthum? What is the unspoken language behind a taqsim (traditional instrumental improvisation) that performers and listeners implicitly know? How can Arabic music be so rich and diverse without resorting to harmony? Why is it so challenging to transcribe Arabic music from a recording? Inside Arabic Music answers these and many other questions from the perspective of two "insiders" to the practice of Arabic music, by documenting a performance culture and a know-how that is largely passed on orally. Arabic music has spread across the globe, influencing music from Greece all the way to India in the mid-20th century through radio and musical cinema, and global popular culture through Raqs Sharqi, known as "Bellydance" in the West. Yet despite its popularity and influence, Arabic music, and the maqam scale system at its heart, remain widely misunderstood. Inside Arabic Music de-mystifies maqam with an approach that draws theory directly from practice, and presents theoretical insights that will be useful to practitioners, from the beginner to the expert - as well as those interested in the related Persian, Central Asian, and Turkish makam traditions. Inside Arabic Music's discussion of maqam and improvisation widens general understanding of music as well, by bringing in ideas from Saussurean linguistics, network theory, and Lakoff and Johnson's theory of cognition as metaphor, with an approach parallel to Gjerdingen's analysis of Galant-period music - offering a lens into the deeper relationships among music, culture, and human community.

Snake Hips

Snake Hips PDF Author: Anne Thomas Soffee
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1556525222
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
"Snake Hips" follows an Arab-American woman through her adventures in love and belly dancing.

The Art of Being Jewish in Modern Times

The Art of Being Jewish in Modern Times PDF Author: Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812208862
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
The wide-ranging portrayal of modern Jewishness in artistic terms invites scrutiny into the relationship between creativity and the formation of Jewish identity and into the complex issue of what makes a work of art uniquely Jewish. Whether it is the provenance of the artist, as in the case of popular Israeli singer Zehava Ben, the intention of the iconography, as in Ben Shahn's antifascist paintings, or the utopian ideals of the Jewish Palestine Pavilion at the 1939 New York World's Fair, clearly no single formula for defining Jewish art in the diaspora will suffice. The Art of Being Jewish in Modern Times is the first work to analyze modern Jewry's engagement with the arts as a whole, including music, theater, dance, film, museums, architecture, painting, sculpture, and more. Working with a broad conception of what counts as art, the book asks the following questions: What roles have commerce and politics played in shaping Jewish artistic agendas? Who determines the Jewishness of art and for what purposes? What role has aesthetics played in reshaping religious traditions and rituals? This richly illustrated volume illuminates how the arts have helped Jews confront the various challenges of modernity, including cultural adaptation and self-preservation, economic diversification, and ritual transformation. There truly is an art to being Jewish in the modern world—or, alternatively, an art to being modern in the Jewish world—and this collection fully captures its range, diversity, and historical significance.