Egyptian Center for Culture and Arts to host Mawawil Gamalat Shiha

CAIRO – 31 July 2017: Egyptian Center for Culture and Arts will host Mawawil Gamalat Shiha and Reda Shiha on Tuesday, August 1 at 8 p.m.

Gamalat Shiha is famous for folk music, including her ‘mawwal’ songs, and has performed lots of concerts in and outside of Egypt with a folk band accompanied by Fathi Salama, an Egyptian musician.

Mawawil are performers playing the traditional music of the Nile Delta that reflects the daily life of peasants through love songs and wedding songs, of which the most popular is ‘mawwal’ or narrative songs.

The mawwal has historical forms of Arabic songs and poetry through which a singer demonstrates his skill with non-metrical melodic improvisation on a poetic narrative text and melody.

The musicians of mawwal play rababa, a double-stringed spike fiddle made
from half of a coconut shell covered with fish skin and a bow strung with horse hair;
the kawala, an end-blown, oblique flute with six holes; and the arghoul, an ancient double clarinet characterized by two pipes of unequal length.

Egyptian Center for Culture and Arts aims to record and present traditional music and musicians to renew cultural resources that bridge Mediterranean and sub-Saharan African cultures.