REEM KELANI: Music of the Egyptian Revolution

REEM KELANI - Arab Spring: Music of the Egyptian Revolution
 
Duration 90 minutes + 20 minute interval
 
REEM KELANI is a Palestinian singer, musicologist and broadcaster, born in the UK and brought up in Kuwait.  On 25th January 2011 she was present in Tahrir Square, where she witnessed first hand tens of thousand of protestors gathering to oppose President Mubarak's regime.  Reem has subsequently been commissioned by BBC Radio 4 to write and present “Songs for Tahrir”, a documentary about the music of the Egyptian Revolution.

Reem's concert will include songs from her first album “Sprinting Gazelle – Palestinian Songs from the Motherland and the Diaspora” as well as music by the Egyptian composer Sayyid Darwish.  Considered by many to be the father of contemporary Arabic music, Darwish is little known outside the Arab world and under appreciated in some musical establishments within in.  He was the composer of the Egyptian national anthem in its modern Arabic form, and composed anthems that symbolised the 1919 Egyption Revolution: music which inspired resistance against British colonial rule.  Most recently Darwish's music has provided a backdrop to the most important events in modern Egyptian history.