Fayrūz

Biography

Fairuz is a Lebanese singer and actor. France’s national library records Nuhad Haddad among her name forms.

Her songs and theatre work became closely associated with Assi and Mansur Rahbani. Sami Asmar describes Muhammad Fleifel discovering her voice at school and her work in Lebanese Radio’s chorus. His account explains Halim al-Rumi’s early compositions, suggestion of the name Fairuz and introduction to Assi. It documents her Baalbek debut in 1957 and guest composers including Philemon Wahbi, Najib Hankash and Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab. Her collaboration with Ziad began before Assi’s death. Asmar documents Saaluni-n Nass in 1973: Ziad’s melody and Mansur’s words during Assi’s hospitalization. Ziad’s later work with her drew on jazz, maqamat and the buzuq. Kenneth Habib examines her sacred repertoire, including Good Friday and Christmas hymns and songs of Jerusalem. He treats prayer as a theme connecting these works with diverse listeners. Habib analyses the Fairuz-Rahbani sound as a meeting of Arab art music, folk traditions and European and American music, with accordion, a violin section and contrabass in the orchestra.