Sounds of Arabia's voice for peace

• Last Updated: November 22. 2009 12:38AM UAE / November 21. 2009 8:38PM GMT

The singer Majida el Roumi, whose Abu Dhabi concerts launch the Sounds of Arabia series this week, speaks to Philippa Kennedy about her career, the war in Lebanon and her mission to use her talent for the greater good

Nothing quite prepares you for meeting the Lebanese diva Majida el Roumi. On stage, she is magnificent, all tumbling hair, huge eyes, expertly applied make-up that enhances her fine bones. Fire and passion exude from every pore.

And then there is that huge, velvety voice that has captured the hearts of millions of admirers as it lingers over the lyrics of a love song reflecting the pain of a nation that has suffered from more than three decades of devastating conflict.

In person, though, it’s almost as if someone entirely different were standing there in front of you.

“That is Majida,” she says of her stage presence. “This is little Maggie.”

Maggie’s voice is quiet and small. Its owner looks much younger than her 52 years. Her rich brown hair is uncurled and hangs loosely over her slender shoulders. She is wearing a simple checked shirt over blue jeans and a pair of low-heeled, strappy sandals.

There is a shy, spiritual quality about her, and as she slips into a chair in her suite in the Emirates Palace hotel, politely offering coffee, she is almost dwarfed by her surroundings. There is a sense that she would much prefer to be wandering through the trees and admiring the flowers at her home in the village of Jounieh, Lebanon.

But Maggie has a job to do and that is to make sure that her alter ego is ready for her concerts next week, which launch the second series of Sounds of Arabia, which will take place on the last Thursday of each month.

“Majida belongs on the stage,” el Roumi says. “I like Majida because she is a great fighter in life. She loves the bright lights on stage and the glory and she pushes Maggie to accept the high price of glory. The glory belongs on the stage. You can’t bring the glory home with you.”

She has flown to Abu Dhabi a week before her concerts in order to give her musicians time to acclimatise and to prepare herself for the best possible performance. Being Majida means being disciplined in everything she does as Maggie: what she eats and drinks, how she behaves and, most importantly, how she protects her voice.

@body arnhem: El Roumi, continued from 1



El Roumi works out every day with a mixture of yoga, aerobics and stretching to build up her body’s stamina, and she puts her voice through an equally rigorous set of vocal exercises. “It’s a very nice gift from heaven but you have to know how to deal with it. I accept many sacrifices in my career like not being able to eat everything or go for a swim because that is bad for my voice. My voice is for everybody.

“You suffer a lot to do nice things. I am careful about what I eat but it is lucky that I love salads and soups – and I’m not pretending. I don’t smoke or drink alcohol and I sleep well and eat healthily.

“I can’t take a rest. I can’t stop working the body and the voice and my soul and my heart and trying to be a better person. I have to work a lot because, if not, I become an ordinary person. I can’t be an ordinary person. I have to be this extraordinary person. The voice is a result of what I am, what I eat and what I do with this body.

“Maggie pushes Majida to do things that push her into the golden jail. Maggie loves Majida and prays for Majida,” she says. “If you would like to have a good image, you have to work on it. You can’t afford to do many things. In the Arab world we have customs and habits, and a singer has to respect all these things – for example in the way she dresses.”

The feeling she gets when she finishes a song and hears the tumultuous applause makes it all worthwhile. “It makes me feel like flying. It makes me feel very much nearer to God. It’s beautiful. I must believe in myself.”

She gives few interviews because she believes an artist needs to maintain an element of mystery. “The habit of talking about yourself destroys the artist. They shouldn’t be in touch. They should be distant. People love mysteries.”

To understand what drives her and fills her work with passion and pathos, it is necessary to understand her country’s struggle and her personal tragedy. The war and the death of her sister Maha, who died of cancer at the age of 49, plunged el Roumi into a dark and deeply spiritual period that lasted for more than seven years. They still colour her life.

She was born in Tyre, southern Lebanon, to a well-known musician and singer, Halim el Roumi, and his wife, Marie. They built a house in the countryside village of Kfarshima, where their three daughters, Maha, Majida and Mouna, and son, Awad, grew up surrounded by music and poetry. Their home became a meeting place for prominent artists, writers and musicians. “Lebanon was a wonderful country then,” el Roumi says. “I grew up in a small village near Beirut where everything was very perfect for a child.

“My father was an artist and a singer, very talented and with a very nice voice. He was also a composer and a very romantic person. He chose to live in a small village surrounded by trees, flowers and birds. Try to imagine all this in one house: there is always music and flowers are always smiling and trees are always singing and there are always nice people. I know this nature very well. It’s my lovely Lebanon and I believe that one day it will return to peace again.”

Young Majida loved to listen to singers such as Fairuz, Umm Kulthum, Mohammed Abdel Wahab, Wadi al Safi and Asmahan. She soon began to sing their songs. Her cousin Raymond Safadi encouraged her to enter a television talent show, but her father refused to give her permission as he felt she was too young and needed to concentrate on her studies.

“I told him it would be just for one time,” she says. “We were a musical family. Everybody sang and danced and played some instrument. So he eventually he said I could do it.”

To the amazement of her family, she won the gold medal and soon the offers were flooding in. Her father allowed her to pursue her singing as long as she carried on with her education, and she enrolled in university to study Arabic literature.

“My family was very surprised that I was very good that night in the talent show. I didn’t really take a decision to become a professional singer. After the television show it was all about signing contracts. And then the war came.”

It changed everything for el Roumi and her family. She wraps her arms around her body and drops her voice almost to a whisper as she remembers the years huddled in her basement in fear for her life. It is clear that the experiences of those years left her deeply scarred.

“Because of the war I lost at least 10 years waiting for another chance to do a professional job. After that I was obliged to wait till 1986. Life was very bad and we constantly lived in great fear. We would go out to other villages but most of the time we were obliged to stay at home in the bomb shelter.

“It was horrible, not human at all. I will never never forget the crimes of the war. I use my voice to defend the peace process and for the sake of love... For many years I was so frightened. I can’t imagine myself in this condition again. I can’t afford to feel like that again. It’s something so disgusting to live through war and to see how bad many people are and feel that they want to kill us.”

In 1977, el Roumi married Antoine Dfouni, a businessman from Byblos who became her manager. They had two daughters, Hala, now 28 and married, and Nour, 17, who is still at school. But the marriage did not last and they divorced in 2006.

It was a painful time for el Roumi, coinciding as it did with the diagnosis of her sister’s cancer. Maha’s death had a profound effect on el Roumi and marked the beginning of a period during which she produced only religious albums.

“Many of us lose faith because of this, but not me. I became a very spiritual person. Very religious and very close to God. It was very disturbing period of my life. I had many problems in my personal life. A year after the death of my sister I left home, and for years I stayed inside, very depressed, shocked and sad.

“It taught me the value of human life. When I lost my sister I asked myself many questions about life and death and I concluded that I must put human life first and last, to give everyone the chance to be surrounded by my respect and my love, every person in my family and everyone that we have to deal with in life. When you lose someone you love, it is finished. It is over. Time can never wait for us.”

When she emerged to take to the stage again, el Roumi believes she was stronger because of her faith (she is a devout Catholic), and she determined that she would put her fame and talent to good use as an ambassador for the United Nations, something she says means a great deal to her. She was appointed an ambassador for the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization in 2001 and does numerous television interviews on the subject of combating world hunger. “Whenever they ask me to do something, I do it,” she says.

“My faith brought me out. Also my children, my family and my audiences, but especially my faith. In Lebanese life every day is special, and concluding a day without dying is a gift from God. When peace is not there we are spending time searching for peace and nice things to do, things that people take for granted like a good job and good art. When war is here and the bad conditions are always here, you feel like you want to catch every chance.”

She could, of course, have left to seek a safer haven for herself and her daughters but says she never considered it. “I didn’t leave because I love my country and I believe in it, even with war and bad conditions. One day everything will change like all other countries that experience war.”

Now she feels able to think about the future and stretch herself musically. She was one of the first modern singers to combine western classical music with Arabic, or tarab, music. One of her biggest hits is Habibi, set to the music of Albinoni’s Adagio. Another is set to the tune of Mendelsohn’s Wedding March. Many of her songs proclaim her love for Lebanon. One is called Ya Beirut and is often used with the backdrop of news footage of the war. She has sung duets with José Carreras and Youssou N’Dour and would love to do more with international artists such Celine Dion, whom she describes as “perfect”, and Plácido Domingo.

In Abu Dhabi this week, el Roumi will sing a selection of her greatest hits. “There will be nothing new. I am preparing a new CD of love songs for next year. I have written many of the lyrics and they are stories of life. I am singing with my heart, not with my body. I don’t believe in body, I believe in the soul and the heart. My dream is to take oriental music to an international level. That’s why I work a lot to take our popular songs and oriental and Lebanese songs to another level.”

She changed record labels several times in order to have the independence she craves, and with the help of her brother, who travels with her as her manager, set up her own production company. “I’ve change my record label because I believe always in doing things better in life. When I decide that something is right I just do it. I think I have the right to go to a better level.

“It’s not always a problem of money. It’s sometimes a problem to see the right angle to go ahead. If they can’t see it, then I move on. It’s my life and it’s my voice.

“We pay for the production for that reason. When you are painting a tableau and there are lots of different people putting on colours, where is the personality? I have to put my spirit into my job. You have to find a way.”

Throughout her long career, she has been outspoken about the conflicts in Lebanon and Palestine. During a concert in Beirut in 2002 she said: “What is going now in Palestine is a crime against humanity, and I am here to say a final ‘No!’ to the Israeli occupation. To the Palestinians I say: Our hearts are with you; our souls are with you; justice is with you, and the land will always be yours.”

She also recorded a song called Qana as a protest against Israel’s 2006 shelling of a UN compound there.

Today her anxiety for her homeland is palpable. “Now we are here on the edge. It’s not war and not peace but in between. We need peace. We are a very sad people. We are suffering for too long now. We deserve peace. Thirty-four years of war and conflict is enough.”



Ÿ Majida el Roumi will open the second season of Sounds of Arabia with two performances at the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday and Wednesday. www.adach.ae.