Eyes closed, face absorbed, Marcel Khalifeh lets the music flow through him and sweep away the audience. (Credit: Nabil Ismail)
Marcel Khalifeh returned to South Lebanon on a full-moon night in Saida, to its citadel, fishermen, poor, resistance fighters, and the audience that knows his old songs by heart. He came back with his oud to the gates of the South — his refuge, safe shore, and shelter for the displaced fleeing Israeli fire. The return had been decades in the making; he first sang here in the mid-1970s, performing his friend Mahmoud Darwish’s poem Wou’oud fil assifa (Promises in the Storm).After a long absence spent in semi-retirement composing an opera based on Darwish’s La Jidariyya, Khalifeh reunited with his loyal, unshakable audience — even though he had distanced himself after the civil war to evolve his music and launch a new song project. The crowd still clung to his original melodies and his passion for novelty, songs written “for the people and...
Marcel Khalifeh returned to South Lebanon on a full-moon night in Saida, to its citadel, fishermen, poor, resistance fighters, and the audience that knows his old songs by heart. He came back with his oud to the gates of the South — his refuge, safe shore, and shelter for the displaced fleeing Israeli fire. The return had been decades in the making; he first sang here in the mid-1970s, performing his friend Mahmoud Darwish’s poem Wou’oud fil assifa (Promises in the Storm).After a long absence spent in semi-retirement composing an opera based on Darwish’s La Jidariyya, Khalifeh reunited with his loyal, unshakable audience — even though he had distanced himself after the civil war to evolve his music and launch a new song project. The crowd still clung to his original melodies and his passion for novelty, songs written “for the...
