Dida Guigan. (Credit: Rights reserved)
Surrounded by the musicians of her Beirut Express Quintet, the graceful, long-haired brunette swept her audience away last Thursday at the "Jazz sous les étoiles" ("Jazz under the Stars") festival (Sept. 5 — 8 in the Swiss village of Saint-Luc, in the canton of Valais). The jazz was mixed, trilingual and well-traveled.The band played an “Arab jazz” which, through covers of songs by Asmahan ("Enta hataraf"), Fairuz ("Aatini El Nay") and Marcel Khalife ("Asfour," "Nami, Nami Ya Seghirreh"), as well as tunes she composed, tells her moving story. It's the story of a young woman whose quest for identity manifests itself as much in her vocation as a singer as in her determination to seek out her Lebanese roots.Born in BeirutBorn in Beirut in 1984, Dida Guigan was adopted exactly 40 years ago at “barely ten days old” by a Franco-Swiss couple....
Surrounded by the musicians of her Beirut Express Quintet, the graceful, long-haired brunette swept her audience away last Thursday at the "Jazz sous les étoiles" ("Jazz under the Stars") festival (Sept. 5 — 8 in the Swiss village of Saint-Luc, in the canton of Valais). The jazz was mixed, trilingual and well-traveled.The band played an “Arab jazz” which, through covers of songs by Asmahan ("Enta hataraf"), Fairuz ("Aatini El Nay") and Marcel Khalife ("Asfour," "Nami, Nami Ya Seghirreh"), as well as tunes she composed, tells her moving story. It's the story of a young woman whose quest for identity manifests itself as much in her vocation as a singer as in her determination to seek out her Lebanese roots.Born in BeirutBorn in Beirut in 1984, Dida Guigan was adopted exactly 40 years ago at “barely ten days old” by a...
