East and West
All through the month of July the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA) Arts Centre is conducting the Eighth International Summer Festival “East and West”. This year’s festival features music performances, visual arts exhibitions and dance performances from Austria, Egypt, England, Germany, Italy, Iran, Scotland and Sweden. Omar Khairat and the BA Orchestra, conducted by Sherif Mohie-Eddin opened the festival with a grand, vivid performance.
SOS
The BA also hosted the SOS Music Festival from Friday 3 July to Friday 10 July. The week-long festival featured performances by 14 different bands and singers. SOS encourages artistic development through showcasing the collaboration between new and established musicians, including the BA Orchestra. Concerts took place at the BA Plaza Summer Theatre.
The event acts as a catalyst for community development, with local NGOs setting up booths for visitors to sign up as volunteers in the fields of special needs education and community development.
The Big Read
Earlier this month, and within the context of the Big Read—the joint project between Egypt and the United States which aims at introducing American literature to Egyptian readers and vice versa—the BA screened the 1966 film Fahrenheit 451. The screening is among the activities of the second phase of the project which centres on the novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. The film, directed by François Truffaut, and stars Oskar Werner, Cyril Cusack and Julie Christie, was screened with Arabic subtitles. The Big Read involves a writing contest for young people aged 12 – 16 to imagine a different ending for the novel, and an art contest to draw a poster for the film.
The first phase of the project ran last year and centred on Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.
Mosaic symposium
The first day of this month saw the opening of the Alexandria Mosaic Symposium which will be running till 29 August. Interestingly, the same day witnessed the launching of two other artistic events at the BA, the Resident Artist and First Time Exhibitions, both of which run till 25 July. The Resident Artist places on show the works of nine Egyptian artists who were invited by the BA to spend a month there, interact on a close level with the BA general climate and activities, and thence gain inspiration for artistic works. The First Time Exhibitions, as the name implies, offers young artists the opportunity to exhibit their works to the public for the first time. The fact that all these exhibitions are shown on the BA’s Open Plaza means that they will be widely viewed by all who venture into the grounds of the Bibliotheca.
The Mosaic Symposium hosted some 13 Egyptian and international young artists who used small bits of rock, marble, glass, and pebbles to form three-dimensional mosaic works of astounding beauty. The prominent Egyptian artist Mustafa al-Razzaz, who acts as consultant to the BA on plastic arts, commented that the gathering of several artists from different places in the world to work in a compassionate team spirit was the best way to dissolve all ethnic, national, ideological, sectarian, and methodical differences. “The works on exhibit,” he said, “interpret a Utopian world of creativity.”
Song festival
Maltese singer Marilena Gaucci and Jordanian singer Yehia Sweissy both won the first prize of the Alexandria International Song and Music Festival which closed on Friday 10 July. Guacci won with the Malta 2009 hit song contest entry “Unforgettable” penned by Gerard James Borg and with music by Philip Velle. The winners faced tough competition from 41 international contestants.
A special prize was awarded to the Egyptian Sara Hassan who took the audience by storm with her religious chanting.
The closing ceremony of the 7th edition of the Alexandria International Song and Music Festival saw several of the top musicians and singers in Egypt and the Arab World appreciated. Culture Minister Farouq Hosni and Alexandria governor Adel Labib honoured, among others, Gamal Salama, Magdy al-Husseini, Walid Saad, and the young singer Tamer Hosni.
Farouq Hosni applauded the community service projects undertaken by the festival; this year it included the foundation of a shelter for street children in Alexandria.
Samir Sabry, secretary-general of the festival, said the festival had in its first years introduced many first-time singers who went on to be stars. As examples he cited Haifaa’ Wahby, Nancy Agram, and Tamer Hosni.
This year’s round of the festival was dedicated to the name of the Egyptian avant-guarde musician of the 1950s Mohamed Fawzy, whose music was described by Sabry as being perpetually “young”.