Marcel Khalife Award for Young Palestinian Composers

Winners Announced

Marcel Khalifé performs in Rome

Italian fanfare welcome the international composer

Music, peace and solidarity were the main themes of the fourth annual “September Concert” in Rome. The event was officially endorsed by: l’Alto Patronato della Presidenza della Repubblica, Presidenza del Consiglio, Senato della Repubblica, Camera dei Deputati, Ministero Affari Esteri, Commissione Italiana per l’Unesco, Regione Lazio, Provincia and Assessorato alle Politiche Culturali e della comunicazione del Comune di Roma.

Compagnia per la Musica in Roma, in collaboration with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia closed the day of events with a special gala concert at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in the Santa Cecilia Hall.

The program opened with a piece by special guest composer and UNESCO Artist for Peace Marcel Khalife and percussionist Bachar Khalife titled “Suite Andalouse”.

Maestro Lorin Maazel directed the Orchestra Symphonica d'Italia and the Santa Cecilia Chorus in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, the most universal musical declaration of peace and brotherhood of man as well as the only musical score that UNESCO calls a treasure for all humanity.

Conductor: Maestro Lorin Maazel; Composer: Marcel Khalife; Soloists: Bachar Khalife (req).

Photos courtesy of Sleiman Mouawad.

Marcel Khalifé in Beiteddine

Warm reception for an ecstatic performance

Below are photographs of Marcel Khalifé's performance in the Beiteddine Festival in Lebanon. Photos courtesy of Jamal Saidi, Reuters.

QPO with Marcel Khalifé

Concert to raise awareness for children of Gaza

Marcel Khalifé performs inspiring Andalusian Suite to fans both old and new in Qatar. Thanks to novita77 for the vimeo video post. This is the precursor to the February 7th concert titled "Music for hte Children of Gaza". Click here to read about the press conference that took place in Doha, Qatar.

Marcel Khalifé Performs in Tyre

Thousands of fans attend spectacular performance

Below are photographs of Marcel Khalifé's performance in Tyre, Lebanon on July 18, 2009. Photos courtesy of Jamal Saidi, Reuters.

Spectacular show of Music & Poetry in Vienna

Marking the 60th Anniversary of UN Palestine Refugee Agency

A spectacular show of music and poetry with the legendary Lebanese musician Marcel Khalife and the Al-Mayadine Ensemble was enjoyed by hundreds of people and many UN staff in Vienna as part of an ongoing series of events around the world to mark the 60th anniversary of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) this week. The ‘Concert for Peace and Humanity’ organized by the Society for Austro-Arab Relations and sponsored by the Austrian Government and the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) had many of the audience joining in with the performers to some well-known Marcel Khalife songs. Photos courtesy of Jamal Saidi, Reuters.

The spectacle was held under the patronage of the Austrian Federal President Heinz Fischer and the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon who addressed the audience through a video message in which he spoke about the plight of the Palestine Refugees and the role of UNRWA to support them: “When UNRWA was established in 1949, no one anticipated that its humanitarian and human development work would be needed for this long. But, until there is a final settlement of the conflict, I am confident that UNRWA will continue to be a source of strength and support for millions of Palestinian refugees.”

Mr. Ban also paid tribute to the musician, Marcel Khalife for using his musical gifts to cross the boundaries of faith, race and social class. “They remind us of our shared humanity as well as our shared responsibility to build a better world,” the UN Secretary-General said.

The memorable evening held in Vienna’s famous City Hall was also attended by the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of the Palestinian Authority and the Commissioner –General of UNRWA, Karen Koning Abu Zayd. At the concert UNRWA and OFID announced the establishment of a new Scholarship Fund for Talented Palestinians which will provide higher education opportunities to Palestinian students from the West Bank, Gaza Strip and refugee camps in neighbouring countries.

Cooperation between UNRWA and OFID extends over several years and at a ceremony the following day (1 July 2009) the OFID pledged an additional 3 million dollars to the OFID Micro Enterprises for Palestine Fund (PALFUND) as well as one million dollars to the Scholarship Fund.

The events in Vienna are part of a series worldwide to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the establishment of UNRWA, following the 1948 Middle East war. The anniversary is an occasion for sober reflection on why an agency which was created by the international community to be ‘temporary’ is now marking its sixtieth anniversary. Over the last 60 years UNRWA has fed, housed and clothed tens of thousands of refugees and at the same time educated and offered health care to hundreds of thousands of young refugees. Today UNRWA is the main provider of basis services – education, health, relief and social services to over 4.6 million registered Palestine refugees in the Middle East.

Photos (please credit Rana Wintersteiner, OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID): and Jamal Saidi, Chief Photo Journalist for Reuters in Lebanon and Syria.

Beethoven's Symphony meets Marcel Khalifé's Concerto

The birth of the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra

In 2008, Marcel Khalifé was named the music director and resident composer of the newly founded, Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra (QPO). The orchestra is comprised of 101 professional musicians from throughout Europe, Asia and The Arab World. The orchestra was selected after rigorous and extensive auditions in Europe, Asia and the Arab World. The Inaugural concert of the QPO occurred on October 30th 2008 to a sold out and enthusiastic audience. The QPO performed the world premiere of Marcel Khalifé's new composition Arabian Concerto, which is a composition for the, oud (Kinan Adnawi), buzouq (Osman Mohamad), qanoun (Feras Sharestan), ney (Moslem Rahal), req (Bachar Khalife) and symphony orchestra, and another piece by Marcel Khalifé titled Salute, which is a composition for tabla (Bachar Khalife) and symphony orchestra. The QPO also performed works by Beethoven and Ravel. The performance was conducted by the world renowned Maestro Lorin Maazel.

2007 Grand Prize Award from L'Académie Charles Cros

Lebanese composer, oud master and singer Marcel Khalifé was awarded the 2007 Grand Prize of the prestigious L'Académie Charles Cros (www.charlescros.org) in the World Music Category. L'Académie Charles Cros is the French equivalent of the US Recording Academy (The Grammy Awards). The award was given in recognition of his latest work Taqasim which Khalifé dedicates to his friend, the renowned Palestinian poet, the late Mahmoud Darwish.

In memory of Mahmoud Darwish

The loss of the great poet

For many years, my music has enjoyed a special, and especially gratifying, association with the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish. Our respective corpora have grown to be reminiscent of each other, so that the name of each of the twain, instantly and without reflection, would evoke the name of the other. How very appropriate, for all of my musical milestones that punctuate my thirty-year career, beginning with Promises of the Storm and culminating with The Doves Fly, are graced with the lyricism and poignancy that are uniquely Darwishian. Even before we got to know each other personally, I felt as though Darwish’s poetry, with its divine assertiveness and prophetic cadences, had been revealed to me and for me. I could nearly savor his mother’s bread that has become iconic to his readers. I could feel the eyes of his Rita as deeply as I could feel the pain that his Joseph suffered at the hands of his treacherous siblings, and I could identify with his passport, which I fancied carried my picture, just as personally as I could identify with his olive grove, his sand, and his sparrows. They were all, at a personal level, mine.

Perhaps, this is the only time that Mahmoud Darwish felt ashamed and it is because he departed before his mother. He left her the tears to shed but not a poem to eulogize him with. I am the one who carried his poetry and traveled with it to far away places. I am the one who carried his soil and longing to his mother, his Rita, his olive tree and grape vine. Would you believe me when I say to you that poets do not die, but only pretend to?

Laila and the Possessed

Fury in Bahrain's Parliament

Members of parliament in the small Gulf kingdom Bahrain attacked a performance by Lebanese composer Marcel Khalifé and Bahraini poet Qassim Haddad as being a violation of Islamic morals and sharia laws.

Controversy has emerged with a new work by the renowned Lebanese musician and composer Marcel Khalifé and Bahraini poet Qassim Haddad. The controversy revolves around the setting of an epic love poem entitled 'Majnoon Laila', or 'Laila Wal Majnoon', (which means 'Laila and the Possessed' or 'Laila and the Madman'), to music, dance, song and drama by Marcel Khalifé.

The performance premiered in Bahrain on 1 and 2 March 2007 as part of the inauguration of the annual Spring of Culture Festival which was organized by the Bahraini Ministry of Information. Marcel Khalifé sang at the show while male and female dancers staged the relationship between the two famous Arab lovers, Laila and Qais.

The show was attacked by fundamentalist members of the Bahraini parliament as being in violation of Islamic morals and sharia laws after an Islamic preacher, Sheikh Ali Matar, had complained in a prayer sermon that the Spring of Culture Festival features a play with scenes that "arouse [sexual] instincts" and "encourage debauchery".

Parliament second vice-chairman Dr Salah Abdulrahman said the event included ³sleazy dance moves² which were offensive to Muslims and non-Muslims.

On 13 March 2007 the Bahraini parliament voted to create an investigative committee look into the controversy. Islamists control three-quarters of the 40 seats in the parliament in Bahrain.