The death of artist Ziad Rahbani, a genius jack-of-all-trades on the Lebanese scene

For several decades, he was the genius jack-of-all-trades of the Arab cultural scene. Lebanese Ziad Rahbani died on Saturday, July 26, at the age of 69, in Beirut, where he was hospitalized. The announcement of his death gave rise to a unanimous outpouring of tributes in Lebanon, a country that is nevertheless very polarized. A provocative spirit, committed to the left, the musician and man of the theater remains, in the hearts of many Lebanese, associated with the songs he wrote for his mother, the diva Fairouz, and with his satirical sketches, broadcast on the radio during the dark days of the civil war (1975-1990). A pianist and composer, he was also a figure of oriental jazz. Weakened by illness, he had largely withdrawn from social life for several years.

Ziad Rahbani was born on January ¹ , 1956, in Antelias, a Christian town a few kilometers north of Beirut. His parents, Fairouz (born in 1934) and the composer Assi Rahbani (1923-1986) , were at the beginning of their fame in the Arab world, where they would revolutionize music. He attended the Collège Notre-Dame de Jamhour, a Jesuit school attended by the children of the Lebanese elite. He, the eldest child of a couple from modest backgrounds, never really felt at home there. From childhood, he was immersed in the world of operettas created by his father and his uncle Mansour, in which Fairouz was the star. He learned music, discovering the piano at the same time as politics – the work of his mother, who sang about Jerusalem, is imbued with empathy for the Palestinian tragedy.

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