The third annual Sounds of Arabia music festival will focus on "the future of Arabic classical music" when it returns today, with its biggest line-up to date. The nine-day Abu Dhabi event - presented under the motto New Sounds of Arabia - will see 14 performances by artists from across the region. Although this year's festival is focused primarily on emerging talent, organisers have not turned their backs on well-know artists as the Arabic music favourites Lotfi Bouchnak, Sabah Fakhri and Medhat Saleh are all set to play the event.
"The senior generation will leave us one day, it's unavoidable, so it's good to build up newer generations," says Neil van der Linden, the co-curator of Sounds of Arabia. "[The festival is] intended to have lots of diversity and variety. We aim to honour some of the established names and also to present some younger, newer names - the future of Arabic classical music." The event's opening night, which will be held at Emirates Palace, will focus on the traditional music of the UAE. The Emirati master musician Said al Salem will collaborate on a number of orchestral and choral pieces with Bouchnak, the renowned Tunisian singer, oud player and composer who also played at last year's event.
Their fellow Arabic music master Fakhri will perform on May 12. The Syrian singer is perhaps the best-known living exponent of Tarab music and widely recognised for keeping the art form alive today. He has also become renowned for the duration of his live performances, which have reportedly reached up to 10 hours in length. One of Egypt's most popular singers, Saleh, will take to the stage on Saturday, with a tribute to his countryman Mohammed Abdel Wahab. As well as being one of 20th century Egypt's best loved composers and performers, Abdel Wahab was also a silent film icon.
"Medhat Saleh is famous for doing this tribute and audiences always love it, so that will be really popular," says van der Linden. The festival's second night will feature a double bill of performances; the Egyptian singer and oud player Mustafa Said, followed by the well known Lebanese musician Ahmed Kaboor. The following week, Abu Dhabi Theatre will host the Syrian clarinet virtuoso Kinan Al Azmeh and his band Hewar, as well as a performance from the singer Rima Khcheich, who plays with a group of Dutch musicians, on the same night.
The Algerian musician Nassima will also play the festival, before the Palestinain-American oud virtuoso Simon Shaheen takes the stage. The famous US-based MESTO Orchestra, conducted by Nabeel Azam, will perform with Karima Skalli, who also played last year's festival. The event's penultimate night will feature two female singers, the Syrian soloist Waed Bouhassoun and the Moroccan diva Aicha Redouane.
Sounds of Arabia will close with The Iranian Evening, with concerts by musical collective Neyestan and the masters of Persian percussion Zarbang. "There are lots of interesting things happening among these artists," says van der Linden. "Some of them, like Mustafa Said and Aicha Redouane, try to go back to a very pure kind of early 20th century music - long before the popular songs of their time. Others, like Rima Khcheich and Kinan Al Azmeh, experiment with [bringing] new instruments to Arabic music."
In keeping with previous editions of the festival, this year's event will also include lectures and film screenings. These will include a question and answer sessions with Mustafa Said, Kinan Azmeh and members of each artist's ensemble on Sunday at the Abu Dhabi Theatre. Said will also take part in a discussion with the Spanish musician Manuela Cortes Garcia, a specialist in the music of the Umayyad period in Islamic Spain on May 15 at Bait al Oud.
Two films by the British journalist Simon Broughton, Breaking the Silence: Music in Afghanistan and Sufi Soul: The Mystic Music of Islam, will be shown at the Abu Dhabi Theatre on May 13. For information about tickets, visit www.adach.ae.
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Sustainable Development Goals
1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere
2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation
10. Reduce inequality within and among countries
11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its effects
14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development
Keep it fun and engaging
Stuart Ritchie, director of wealth advice at AES International, says children cannot learn something overnight, so it helps to have a fun routine that keeps them engaged and interested.
“I explain to my daughter that the money I draw from an ATM or the money on my bank card doesn’t just magically appear – it’s money I have earned from my job. I show her how this works by giving her little chores around the house so she can earn pocket money,” says Mr Ritchie.
His daughter is allowed to spend half of her pocket money, while the other half goes into a bank account. When this money hits a certain milestone, Mr Ritchie rewards his daughter with a small lump sum.
He also recommends books that teach the importance of money management for children, such as The Squirrel Manifesto by Ric Edelman and Jean Edelman.
Sholto Byrnes on Myanmar politics
A timeline of the Historical Dictionary of the Arabic Language
- 2018: Formal work begins
- November 2021: First 17 volumes launched
- November 2022: Additional 19 volumes released
- October 2023: Another 31 volumes released
- November 2024: All 127 volumes completed
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Without Remorse
Directed by: Stefano Sollima
Starring: Michael B Jordan
4/5
Set-jetting on the Emerald Isle
Other shows filmed in Ireland include: Vikings (County Wicklow), The Fall (Belfast), Line of Duty (Belfast), Penny Dreadful (Dublin), Ripper Street (Dublin), Krypton (Belfast)
MATCH INFO
Chelsea 1 (Hudson-Odoi 90 1')
Manchester City 3 (Gundogan 18', Foden 21', De Bruyne 34')
Man of the match: Ilkay Gundogan (Man City)
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Company%20Profile
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Squid Game season two
Director: Hwang Dong-hyuk
Stars: Lee Jung-jae, Wi Ha-joon and Lee Byung-hun
Rating: 4.5/5
Libya's Gold
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Retirement funds heavily invested in equities at a risky time
Pension funds in growing economies in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East have a sharply higher percentage of assets parked in stocks, just at a time when trade tensions threaten to derail markets.
Retirement money managers in 14 geographies now allocate 40 per cent of their assets to equities, an 8 percentage-point climb over the past five years, according to a Mercer survey released last week that canvassed government, corporate and mandatory pension funds with almost $5 trillion in assets under management. That compares with about 25 per cent for pension funds in Europe.
The escalating trade spat between the US and China has heightened fears that stocks are ripe for a downturn. With tensions mounting and outcomes driven more by politics than economics, the S&P 500 Index will be on course for a “full-scale bear market” without Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts, Citigroup’s global macro strategy team said earlier this week.
The increased allocation to equities by growth-market pension funds has come at the expense of fixed-income investments, which declined 11 percentage points over the five years, according to the survey.
Hong Kong funds have the highest exposure to equities at 66 per cent, although that’s been relatively stable over the period. Japan’s equity allocation jumped 13 percentage points while South Korea’s increased 8 percentage points.
The money managers are also directing a higher portion of their funds to assets outside of their home countries. On average, foreign stocks now account for 49 per cent of respondents’ equity investments, 4 percentage points higher than five years ago, while foreign fixed-income exposure climbed 7 percentage points to 23 per cent. Funds in Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan are among those seeking greater diversification in stocks and fixed income.
• Bloomberg