'It was beautiful, seeing a Coptic man singing with the Sufis'

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2013/oct/22/concert-for-children-egypt-gala-hadidi-coptic

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It was already a poignant, if unlikely, collaboration: Sufi Muslims in Cairo using Skype to rehearse with a Coptic Christian priest in Rotherham, in order to create a choral piece that evoked their shared musical heritage.

But on Tuesday – as Yorkshire's Father Moussa and Cairo's Nass Makan collective meet at London's Cadogan Hall to premiere their work – the joint venture has taken on an even greater significance. Two days after four Christians were gunned down at a Cairo wedding, in the latest of a series of sectarian attacks in Egypt, the group's director says the concert is a timely symbol of unity in a country where inter-religious relations are increasingly threatened by Islamic extremism.

"What we are doing is a coincidence, but it proves that Egypt is [as] one," says Ahmed el-Maghraby, the leader of Nass Makan, a Cairo-based folk group that regularly plays with musicians from different traditions.

"It was beautiful in the rehearsal, seeing a Coptic man singing with the Sufis," Maghraby adds. "It's a good message: God doesn't know the difference between Muslims and Christians."

Father Moussa and Nass Makan's piece forms the kernel of a concert aimed at showcasing different aspects of contemporary music in Egypt. Gala el-Hadidi, winner of BBC Cardiff's 2013 Singer of the World competition, will also perform – as well as a group of classical musicians who'll premiere new avant-garde works by three Egyptian composers.

But the night will offer more than just a sense of Egypt's music. It's also a snapshot of the country's political mood, nearly three years on from the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak.

Ahmed Madkour's Four Days is a paean to Egypt's political activists, according to the composer – while Mohamed Saad Basha's Exhaustion tries to evoke the mental fatigue felt by Egyptians following three years of turmoil and economic decline.

"From 2011 onwards, the Egyptian people have faced an unknown future," said Saad Basha, a professor at the Cairo Conservatoire. "So many things have changed in our society, and in how people treat each other and think of each other. And the economic situation has made people wonder how they can earn a living. Even now, we don't know exactly what the government is, or who the president will be. And that's why the piece is about exhaustion: people are tired – they don't feel secure."

Saad Basha's work uses dissonant, out-of-key notes, some of which are elongated "to give the audience the feeling of someone having his hand on your neck, and pressing, pressing, pressing on it. This is what Egyptians feel like in this moment in Egyptian history."

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It is a rare outing for Egyptian avant-garde music. Ahmed Madkour, the composer bringing the three new works to London, says Egypt's few classical music venues "don't want to hear anything past Stravinsky", preferring lighter genres. Madkour has had to come to Britain to premiere not just Saad Basha's piece, but also his own work and that of Bahaa al-Ansary. Twenty-two-year-old Ansary – who learned to compose by watching online videos – was even close to quitting composition earlier this year because "people don't take it seriously".

The trio's work is, by Madkour's own admission, "difficult". But the mood will be lightened by Father Moussa and Nass Makan, who have created a hotchpotch of Sufi and Coptic music – a combination that isn't as surprising as it sounds, says Maghraby. "Actually, we have the same roots," he says. "When Sufis sing of Muhammad – we can find the same melodies in the Coptic music."

They both link back to the music of the pharoahs, he argues. "When the ancient Egyptians became Christians, they said God instead of Ra. And when they became Muslim, they said Muhammad instead of Jesus Christ. But the music always stayed similar."

<em>Patrick Kingsley is the Guardian's Cairo correspondent</em>

Concert for the Children of Egypt is tonight at 7:30pm at Cadogan Hall, London (020 7730 4500). Tickets are from £15. Details: cadoganhall.com

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