Creative fingerprints .. Sabah Fakhri, the craftswoman of the Arabs and the keeper of the lyrical heritage

Damascus-Sana

He did not know the history of contemporary Arab singing as a singer who sat on the throne of traditional Arab singing other than Sabah Fakhri, and this heritage was not known who preserved it and gave it his care and attention and walked it among the people except for Sabah Fakhri.

These words that the late music historian Samim Al-Sharif began to document the path of the great artist Fakhry in his book (Music in Syria: flags and history) is the best introduction to the journey of one of the great Arab singers with his golden throat, diamond voice, and his masterful performance that surpasses all kinds of heritage and even contemporary songs that have become part of it for its popularity And its eternity.

Sabah Fakhri, whose real name is Sabah Abu Qus, was born in the city of Aleppo on the second of May 1933, and his father was a cleric who taught the Noble Qur’an and its intonation, and the owner of Sufi paths .. The tenth, he acquired everything from his father's friends, such as Omar Al-Batsh, Mustafa Al-Tarab, Subhi Al-Harir and Bakri Al-Kurdi, everything from the sciences of tone and weights.

At the age of twelve, Sabah sang his first special muwashah, “O crescent moon, missed me and hid.” Then he called Sheikh Ali Al-Darwish and his two sons Ibrahim and Nadim, who composed some songs for him and taught him to play the oud. Then he accompanied the violinist Sami Al Shawa in his concerts in Aleppo and other Syrian cities. And there you know. Ali Fakhry Al-Baroudi, who was dazzled by his singing, so he adopted it artistically and made him join the Oriental Music Institute.

At the institute, the artist studied Sabah at the hands of Omar Al-Batsh, Aziz Ghanem and Majdi Al-Aqili, and learned from them the rhythms, muwashahat, Al-Samah dance, the art of singing the fundamentalist poem, roles, musical theories, and lyrical recitation by solfege and maqamas and methods of transmission between them so that the composers received him upon his graduation and presented him with songs that the audience shook hands with and introduced them to an emerging singer But he is great, his name is Sabah Fakhri after being called the name of his adopted man, whom he loved with his kindness and care.

When Sabah returned to Aleppo, he studied at the Arab Islamic Institute, through which he obtained both preparatory and high school diplomas .. He thought of quitting art and devoting himself to commercial work, but his love for music, the spread of his songs and the world of stardom pushed him to return to singing, so his new beginning was on the Syrian Arab TV screen through the music program. Arabic in 1961, which was prepared and directed by the late Jamil Wilayat, so he enriched the role of “The Origin of Love, a Look” by Muhammad Othman and the poem “Say

For Al-Malihah ”from his tunes.

This success prompted Sabah to present singing links from the eyes of the heritage, so he presented Ya Mal al-Sham and O Tirih Tiri to Abu Khalil al-Qabbani, reciting their luster and shouting, and then proceeded to the legacy of Sheikh Abd al-Rahim al-Maslub, Sayyid Darwish, Muhammad Othman, Omar al-Batsh, Zakaria Ahmed, and Amin al-Jundi scooping them up without quenching the crowd That tends to sing patrimonial.

And after Sabah participated in acting and singing in the Tramps movie with the duo Duraid Lahham and Nihad Qala'i, and in the series Al-Wadi Al-Kabir in front of the late Warda Al-Jazairia, he sought stardom, so invitations from all Arab countries poured out to him, then he sang to the people of the diaspora in Australia and the Americas, where the cities of Miami and Detroit gave him their key in appreciation of his art and was held He has a tribute ceremony at Ross Hall in Medina

Los Angeles and honored by the University of California College of Art.

In Europe, Sabah sang in the Nobel Peace Hall in Stockholm, the Palais des Congrès in Paris and the Beethoven Hall in Bonn, and the Oriental Music Festival was opened in the French city of Nanterre. He was also invited in England to sing and give lectures on music and oriental instruments.

In his artistic career, Sabah Fakhri occupied several positions, so he was elected captain of the artists, vice president of the Union of Arab Artists and director of the Syrian Song Festival, and he hit the record for singing when he sang in Caracas, Venezuela for 10 hours without interruption in 1968 and mentioned his name, the Microsoft Encyclopedia, our denial as one of the symbols of Arab and Eastern singing.

As for the medals and honors Sabah received, they are many and of the highest levels, starting with the Order of Syrian Merit of the Excellent Class, the Tunisian Cultural Medal, the Honorary Medal from the Sultanate of Oman, the Arab Singing Award from the Emirates, the Cairo International Song Festival Award and the Appreciation Award from the Arab Organization for Education, Culture and Science and the foundation of his fans in Egypt Association Art by his name in 1997.

Sabah Fakhri’s artistic outcome was documented by a book by the Tunisian researcher Elias Boudin indicating that it contains 347 works, including 110 old songs for which a composer is not known, and 66 works whose melody and sang Sabah sang include mawalat, poems, muwashahat, and taqatiq. About 87 muwashah composed by other Syrian and Egyptian composers and narrated about him. It keeps four ships "notebooks", where each ship contains a thousand stanzas.

Sabah’s march encapsulates a striking heritage in the tradition that carries from the spirit of Andalusia and the creativity of the people of Aleppo and the identification of a person with this legacy and his ability not only to preserve and preserve it, but to develop and present it in a way that appeals to the audience of today and tomorrow.

Samer Al-Shoghry