Probably the greatest Arabic singer of modern times, Fairuz, also known as Fayrouz, led the creation of a new musical language in the Middle East.
Fairuz was born Nuhad Wadih Haddad in 1933 in Beirut, Lebanon. She was raised in humble surroundings in the old neighborhood of Zukak el Blat in Beirut, where her father, Wadih Haddad, was a simple typesetter in a small print shop. Nuhad attended the Saint Joseph School for Girls in Beirut until the hardships of World War II forced her father to move her to a public school.
In 1947, at age 14, she was discovered by Mohammad Fleifel, one of the founders of the National Conservatory of Music in Beirut, who was in search of talent for a newly formed choral group. Fleifel was instrumental in Fairuz's admission to the National Conservatory, where she spent five years training. But perhaps his greatest contribution to her development as a singer was the instruction he gave her in the classical tradition of the tajwid, or classical chanting of Koranic verse.
Fairuz began her musical career as a member of the chorus at the Lebanese Radio Station. There Halim Al-Rumi, a composer and musical director at the radio, recognized her unique talent and made her lead soloist. He composed songs especially for her and gave her the stage name of Fairuz (turquoise) because her voice reminded him of a precious stone.
The young Fairuz met with unprecedented enthusiasm from listeners everywhere in Lebanon. This led to a meeting between her and the Rahbani brothers, Assi and Mansour, themselves rising talents as composer and lyricist, respectively. The collaboration between them at first took the form of adaptation by the Rahbanis of modern Western dance tunes into Arabic songs. This gave the team of three a certain amount of public exposure. However, the song that catapulted them into the limelight on the popular scale was not a Western dance tune but a melancholy love song entitled "Itab" (Blame) that they had recorded on November 2, 1952, at the Damascus Radio Station. What followed was a period of experimentation in a variety of musical forms. In all instances Fairuz's songs expressed artistic qualities that extended their appeal to listeners from a wide variety of social and national backgrounds.
In July 1954, Fairuz married Assi Al-Rahbani in a church wedding attended by a large crowd of adoring fans. They set up house in a villa in Antelias, a suburb of Beirut. The beautiful setting of their new home was to serve often as inspiration for many of their future songs.
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