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Kadhem
Saher |
Kadhem
Saher is one of the great singing
stars of the Middle East and indeed
across the Arab world, where he has
sold more than 30 million albums.
Born in Samarra
in Iraq in 1961, Kadem Al Saher came
to live in Baghdad with his family
when he was still a child. He showed
great promise as a musician from a
very early age, teaching himself to
play the guitar, training his voice
to recite the Koran, and immersing
himself in songs of the great masters
Mohamed Abdelwahab, Mohammad Al-Gubbanchi,
Nazem Al-Ghazali, Abdelhaleem Hafez,
Fareed Al Atrash and Fairouz.
He studied the
oud at the prestigious Institut de
Musique de Bagdad under Mounir Bachir,
a master of that instrument. In 1987,
even before Saher’s academic
studies were over, two of his songs,
Ladghat El-Hayya and Abart El-Shat
brought him his first taste of success
in Iraq and more widely in the Gulf
states.
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Kadem
Saher |
After graduating
from the Institut, Saher’s career
took on international stature towards
the end of the 1980s, while the Gulf
War was raging around him. At this
point he emigrated to nearby Lebanon
to continue with his music, and found
there great support from the public.
His love for his native land and its
capital, Baghdad, is shown in the
beautiful song, Kathural Hadeeth,
which has brought him great acclaim.
In 1995 Saher
sang for the first time in Cairo,
musical capital of the Arab world,
at the International Music festival.
Here he triumphed with the songs Salamtak
Min Al Ah (in Iraqi Arabic) and Ikhtari,
written by the great Syrian poet Nizzar
Qabbani.
Since then, every album has been an
enormous success and the public truly
enjoys his rich style of singing.
Over the last few years, his most
notable recordings have been Madrast
Al-Hob (1996), Ana Wal Layla (1998),
Habeebati Wal Matar (1999), Al-Hob
Al-Mostaheel (2000) and Abhathu Anki
(2001).
In 1998, Saher
gave a memorable concert tour in the
USA, appearing before the American
Congress and at the United Nations,
thus attaining global stardom and
becoming a UNICEF prize-winner.
At the foundation
of Kadem Saher’s art, as both
singer and composer throughout his
long years of success, lies his profound
respect for tradition. He has always
remained true to the ancient Iraqi
Maqam style and to the masters of
the past, Farid el Atrach and Mohamed
Fawzi. It is onto this classical foundation
that Kadem Saher superimposes his
more modern style and makes use of
contemporary instruments
