08 August 2005

BEIRUT: "First of all, he is that rare thing, an engaged musician, involved in the society and the times of which he is a part. He sings about liberation, social injustice, tradition, modernity and the lives of people. "He has done more than anyone to raise the level of popular music in the Arab world."

This was how the late Arab-American intellectual and accomplished pianist Edward Said once described Marcel Khalife.

Never was this definition more apt than on Friday night, when celebrated oudist and composer Marcel Khalife gave an exhaustive three-hour performance at the Beiteddine Festival, amid extremely tight security measures and a full-capacity audience of more than 7,000 - mostly young - fans from different parts of the world.

With his versatile and evocative oud playing, Khalife delivered a repertoire of 15 songs and two encores, accompanied by Al Mayadine - an ensemble he founded in 1976 - whose name means both "village square" and "battlefield."

The ensemble featured Khalife's long-time lead vocalist Oumayma Khalil, who has performed with Khalife since she was 12 years old, along with Yolla Keryakos as second vocalist, jazz bassist Peter Herbert and Khalife's two sons, pianist Rami Khalife, and percussionist Bachar.

The concert kicked off with "Sabah el Leil," a song specially composed for the occasion and dedicated to Beiteddine.

After that followed the popular "Rakwet Arab," or "Arabic Coffeepot," a famed 1996 tune of oud and solo vocals, followed by the instrumental "Marassil," or "Love Letters," "Touroukat wa dajij," or "Streets and Noises," "Fi Bali Oughina," or "A Song that's on My Mind," and his famed "Love Duet" from the "Magic Carpet" album of 1998.

Khalife's theatrical mainstay - his usual spoken messages of peace and justice - were dedicated this time to "the martyrs that have perished on our pure soil: Rafik Hariri and Samir Kassir and George Hawi."

"The enemy cannot force us to sing the way he wants," he said. "We must never stop singing for love and life."

Of course, Khalife, named this year's UNESCO Artist of Peace, always stays true to his lifelong commitment to the Palestinian cause, to which he dedicated "Ila Haifa," or "To Haifa."

In solidarity with "Lebanese prisoners in the Israeli prisons - especially Samir Kantar - and the Arab prisoners in the Arab prisons," Khalife played his and Oumayma's classic hit "Asfour tall minel Chibbak," or "A Bird Peeked Out of the Window."

Throughout the entire performance, Khalife showed his incredible ability to engage the audience, as the concert reached its climax with "Rita," a famed song about a mysterious hazel-eyed lover. Each member of the audience sang in union for Rita and of her eyes which "resembled a rifle's barrels," a an explicit reference to the 1975 Lebanese Civil War.

With the very first oud notes of "Ana Amshi," or "I Walk," a 1990 song dedicated to the "proud" Lebanese and Palestinian soldiers, the public rose to their feet in unison, singing in perfect chorus-like fashion.

The voices of the joyful young audience were then harnessed under the direction of a powerful oud master playing music that was simultaneously popular, sophisticated and poetic.

Born in 1950 in Amchit, Mount Lebanon, Khalife studied the oud at the Beirut International Conservatory, and has been injecting new life into the previously constrained tradition of oud playing ever since.

Freeing the instrument from those constraints, Khalife has renovated the very character of Arab song, breaking down its stereotypes through combining ancient Arabic musical traditions with Western elements and instruments, including the piano and double bass.

Kahlife's composition is deeply attached to lyrical text, through his association with great contemporary Arab poets - Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish in particular.

From 1970 to 1975, Khalife taught at the Beirut International Conservatory and other local institutions - all while touring the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and the United States.

After invading Lebanon in 1982, Israeli forces seized his cassettes, but not his nationalism, and he later spent over a quarter of a century singing for Lebanon, the Palestinian cause and the Arab world.

During the Lebanese Civil War, he risked his life by performing in bombed out concert halls, bringing his music and the poetry of the Arab world to the war-ravaged country.

"I do not fit in a cultural box, nor do I want to," Khalife once said. "I have strived all my life to break free of old traditional constraints, to let music speak for itself, unshackled by predetermined rules."

"I have defied identities and categorizations, which only serve to blind us to the vastness and complexity of humanity."

Profound as Khalife's description of his own art may be, though, his words cannot top those of his close friend and collaborator, poet Mahmoud Darwish. Commenting on Khalife's July selection as this year's UNESCO Artist for Peace, Darwish said: "Marcel's music managed to lift our hearts from the wreck, creating a new reality in which we could freely roam. The simplicity of his song disassembles our mental complexity and opens a window to hope.

"Its delicate strength is that of life during a siege of reason. Its nerve is that of men singing while taken to their death. In his song, there is useful beauty and purposefulness. Khalife narrowed the gap, ever widened by poets, between poetry and song. Now, the streets sing with Marcel and words need a podium no more."