Festival finale pays homage to Arabic music

Michel Fadel closes the Abu Dhabi Festival concerts with a tribute to Arab music greats.

The pianist Michel Fadel performed at the Abu Dhabi Festival for closing night on Monday. Photos of legendary female singers were projected on the wall. Delores Johnson / The National

The Abu Dhabi Festival concerts closed on Monday with a look back on the giants of Arabic music.

The Lebanese pianist and composer Michel Fadel led a two-dozen-strong Oriental orchestra, including a string section and Arab instrumentalists, on a whimsical journey featuring selections from legends such the late Wadih Al Safi, Fairuz and Abdel Halim Hafez.

It was a fast-paced show mixed with nostalgia and reinvention, with Fadel using Arabic classics as canvases to inject his modern classical sensibilities.

They were also some tunes just so good, they were left alone. Such was the case with the opening tribute to Al Safih. The four-song suite was highlighted by a quartet of vocalists who moved from the sweet crooning of the lilting Jannat Aa Madd El Nazar to the call and response of the classic folk song Endak Bahriya.

Fadel and his band then tipped their hats to the two Lebanese chanteuses Fairuz and the late Wardah. As the former’s live touring pianist, Fadel is intimately familiar with the pieces, leading the band on sturdy renditions on Emmi Namet A’a bakir and the brooding Nassam Alayna El Hawa.

Sandwiched between these classics were some of Fadel’s own compositions, which served to illustrate his ethos of blending East and West. Toccata Aal Lebnene had Fadel’s blistering fingers paired with an equally masterful display by his qanoon player.

Mozart Aal Lebnene didn’t suffer from novelty value, with Fadel adding complementary eastern melodies to some of the great composer’s piano sonatas.

Fadel ended the programme with a medley of pieces by Hafiz, the Egyptian crooner who was a fan of incorporating classical western music into his ballads. Fadel enhanced the wistfulness of some Hafiz’s popular compositions, leaving a few audience members in tears.