In these pages you will hopefully find interesting tips on how to take advantage of Cairo's many cultural opportunities, with particular attention to live events. Cairo Live Events Guide does not pretend to be exhaustive but will try to cover main events open to the public.

This is a private, independent, nonprofit endeavour. This blog was started in August 2008 by Cairowanderer who has been running it solo up to May 2011. Since then Cairene Beat contributes as well to the blog. If you have any comment, tip, or information you think might be relevant for the blog, please write to cairowanderer@gmail.com or cairenebeat@gmail.com.

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Monday, September 8, 2008

Naseer Shamma


Naseer Shamma is a renowned Iraqi oud player. He began studying the oud at the age of 12 in Baghdad, and in 1985, at the age of 22 he played his own compositions at his first concert, attended by several renowned Iraqi artists. At the time, he worked closely with the late Iraqi master Munir Bashir but then carried on to developed a very personal style . After receiving his diploma from the Baghdad Academy of Music in 1987, he began to teach oud first at the Institute itself, then in Tunisia and, since 1999 in Cairo, where he holds the post of Director of the Arab House of Oud (in arabic Beit Al-Oud, located inside the historical Beit Al-Harrawi, near the Al-Azhar mosque). In addition to teaching and holding concerts, Shamma composes music for films, plays and television. Naseer Shamma has also created an eight-string oud following the manuscript of the 9th-century music theorist Al-Farabi. This new design (eight instead of six strings) expanded the musical range of the instrument and gave it a distinct tonality. His innovations also include a new method of playing the oud with only one hand, which was originally invented by Salim Abdulkarim, so that children and soldiers injured during the Gulf War could play and enjoy.
For more information, see his website at http://www.naseershamma.com/ 

Articles:
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/758/profile.htm

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