<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:st1="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
<head>
<meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 11 (filtered medium)">
<!--[if !mso]>
<style>
v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
.shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
</style>
<![endif]--><o:SmartTagType
namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="place"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="country-region"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="City"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="PlaceName"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="PlaceType"/>
<!--[if !mso]>
<style>
st1\:*{behavior:url(#default#ieooui) }
</style>
<![endif]-->
<style>
<!--
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0pt;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
h1
{mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0pt;
margin-bottom:4.5pt;
margin-left:0pt;
font-size:16.0pt;
font-family:Arial;
color:black;}
h4
{mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0pt;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0pt;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
color:black;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
span.EmailStyle17
{mso-style-type:personal-compose;
font-family:Arial;
color:windowtext;}
@page Section1
{size:612.0pt 792.0pt;
margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
-->
</style>
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]-->
</head>
<body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple>
<div class=Section1>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span lang=EN
style='font-size:12.0pt'><a
href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-ca-fairuz15jul15,0,7017083.story?coll=la-headlines-calendar">http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-ca-fairuz15jul15,0,7017083.story?coll=la-headlines-calendar</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><font size=2 face=Arial><span lang=EN style='font-size:
9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-style:italic'>From the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City
w:st="on">Los Angeles</st1:City></st1:place> Times</span></font></i><font
size=2 face=Arial><span lang=EN style='font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<h4><b><font size=3 color=black face="Times New Roman"><span lang=EN
style='font-size:12.0pt'>WORLD MUSIC<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h4>
<h1><b><font size=5 color=black face=Arial><span lang=EN style='font-size:16.0pt'>Fairuz's
shimmering visions of Lebanon<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h1>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=1 face=Arial><span lang=EN style='font-size:
9.0pt;font-family:Arial;font-weight:bold'>No matter where she performs, this
singer brings home a message of hope.<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span lang=EN style='font-size:12.0pt'>By Raed Rafei<br>
Special to The Times<br>
<br>
July 15, 2007<br>
<br>
<st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Athens</st1:place></st1:City> — MY
memories are impregnated with sounds. First comes the noise of my childhood
nights punctuated with the rumble of generators. And then there are the serene
melodies of my mornings marked by the voice of one diva, Fairuz, singing from
my mother's radio.<br>
<br>
It was a time of civil war. There were frequent power blackouts at home.
Outside, the country was fractured. The news was often of assassinations and
car bombs. Yet one singer brought us all together with her quaint songs of love
and peace. Her words were as pure as her voice, always provoking an angelic
smile on my mother's anxious face. <br>
<br>
Today, 17 years after the end of the war, we are sadly watching our country lie
at the precipices of chaos. And for many of us, the music of Fairuz is again
the haven that preserves our idealistic vision of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>. <br>
<br>
It seemed utterly strange that I had to run away from <st1:City w:st="on">Beirut</st1:City>
and come to <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Athens</st1:place></st1:City>
for the first time to relish another moment with Fairuz on stage. Last weekend,
beneath the Acropolis, at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, the lights were
suddenly all projected on the red carpet where the tail of her glittering white
dress slid. <br>
<br>
The rattle of guns echoing in my head was silenced. Fairuz's voice embraced the
full ancient Greek theater. She sang the nostalgia for the innocent past:
"Children Are Playing," "I Miss You," "Oh Moon, Me and
You" …. In one song, "Tell Me, Tell Me About My Country,"
she asked a breeze for stories of the picturesque villages of <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>. In
another, "These Were the Days," she recalled a shadowy neighborhood
where on feast nights a drunken man once sang and made wall drawings of a girl
next door. <br>
<br>
Many Arab nationals had made the trip from places like <st1:country-region
w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Egypt</st1:country-region>,
<st1:country-region w:st="on">Kuwait</st1:country-region> and <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Jerusalem</st1:place></st1:City> to see "the Lady"
perform. Fairuz was invited to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Greece</st1:place></st1:country-region>
by the Athens Epidaurus Festival, an international event that every summer
hosts music, plays, dance performances and operas from around the world. <br>
<br>
I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was a majority of Greeks in the
crowd. Although most of them were not familiar with Arabic, many seemed simply
moved by the intensity of emotions emanating from her voice. They had come to
see the Lebanese myth who embodies the torments and exaltations of a whole
country. <br>
<br>
During the civil war, with every faction struggling to impose its different
vision of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s
future and identity, the idea of a united country seemed preposterous. But we
all believed her, especially during the mornings when sleep had refreshed our
hopes. Her distinct vocal timbre, filled with a powerful motherly affection,
could soften the cruelest of hearts. <br>
<br>
She boasted about a beautiful <st1:country-region w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:country-region>,
a green <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
a country made of rivers and fruit trees, filled with rosy love stories. It was
an invented nation that only existed in the oft-refined accounts of our parents
and grandparents.<br>
<br>
When the fighting began in 1975, Fairuz, a stage name meaning turquoise in
Arabic, was already one of the Arab world's most popular singers. With her
husband and his brother, Assi and Mansour Rahbani, who composed and wrote for
her, she performed all over the world, enriching Arab music with a new type of
rhythmically elaborate but simple songs. Her mysterious, Callas-like aura
captured the hearts of audiences across the <st1:place w:st="on">Middle East</st1:place>.
She was known for being discreet and shy, rarely giving interviews. <br>
<br>
Fairuz continues today to be an iconoclastic artist, producing distinctive
music in an Arab world way too invaded by cheap locally produced pop songs.
With her son, Ziad, who now writes her music and lyrics, she has performed in
recent years several innovative songs mixing jazz and Oriental rhythms. <br>
<br>
She was born as Nouha Haddad in 1935 and raised in a humble Christian household
in <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Beirut</st1:place></st1:City>. She
started her career as a chorus girl at the Lebanese radio station before
meeting the Rahbani brothers. Fairuz and the Rahbani brothers were setting the
way for modern-day Arabic pop songs, parting from the tradition of long songs
with interminable classical-Oriental musical interludes. Her prodigious musical
repertoire included melancholic songs, folk tunes, patriotic hymns and
religious chants. She sold millions of records around the world.<br>
<br>
Fairuz also played in a dozen musicals and in three motion pictures. Written by
the Rahbani brothers, the musicals had underlying political messages. But all
through the 15 years of bloodshed, as Lebanese, we only had her recordings and
radio voice. She refused to perform while her countrymen fought each other.
During my teenager years, I watched her old concerts on national TV. I was fascinated
by her firm, proud posture in front of the perennial columns of <st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Baalbek</st1:place></st1:City>, the ancient
Roman city. <br>
<br>
And then, the war was finally over. I remember how exhilarated I was, the first
time I saw her on stage in 1994. It was Fairuz's first public performance in <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region> after
the war. Thousands of Lebanese had flocked into Martyr's Square. Fairuz was
singing live for a new start along the old demarcation lines in the ruined
heart of <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Beirut</st1:place></st1:City>.
With tears seemingly pearling in her eyes, she chanted: "I love you <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>. I love
your north, your south, your plains …. " And we were all spellbound
as we fantasized about rebuilding our country. <br>
<br>
In later years, I carried her voice with me as I left to study abroad. When
nostalgia and homesickness invaded my room, her songs had the power to
transport me home.<br>
<br>
"Take me to those lovely hills. Take me to the land that reared us. Forget
me among vineyards and fig trees. Let me lie upon the soil of our village. Take
me, plant me in the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceType w:st="on">land</st1:PlaceType>
of <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:PlaceName></st1:place> ….
"<br>
<br>
Since my return, I have been witnessing with bitterness the descent of <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region> into
chaos again. I realize how naïve I am, clinging to a primordial idea of a
united and flourishing country. <br>
<br>
This summer, Fairuz and many other artists from all over the world will not be
performing in the festivals of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>
because of the instability of the country. <br>
<br>
But watching Fairuz shine among the Greek gods filled me with pride. She proved
to the world that as a nation we were capable of producing culture and not only
images of bombs and fighting, which have unfortunately become very popular on
TV bulletins everywhere. <br>
<br>
--<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<div style='margin-top:7.5pt'>
<div class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span lang=EN style='font-size:12.0pt'>
<hr size=1 width="20%" noshade color="#d1d4bf" align=center>
</span></font></div>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span lang=EN
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-style:italic'>Rafei is The Times' special
correspondent in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:country-region> and
also writes for Forbes <st1:place w:st="on">Arabia</st1:place>.</span></font></i><font
size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
</body>
</html>