Lebanon’s summer festival season has begun. With so many events being staged in a wide variety of locations around the country, we summarized the season’s big-ticket shows.
Regular concertgoers are likely aware that the range of summer acts has contracted in the past few years. This year, festivals booking overseas acts are facing a newly enforced tax regime, which means fewer international performers at some events.
The number of non-Arab international acts on the summer festival program has dropped from 25 in 2014 to 14 this year.
Five of this number will perform at the Byblos International Festival, whose management has announced its refusal to compromise.
Some of the summer festivals have disappeared altogether. Conspicuously absent from this year’s roster are events at Beit Misk, Zahle, Ghalboun, Amchit, Falougha, Faqra, Zouk Mikael and Jounieh’s USEK festival.
Other festivals have shrunk, staging only one or two local acts, which seem to consist of some combination of Michel Fadel, Wael Kfoury, Nassif Zaytoun, Melhem Zein or Carole Samaha. These downsized platforms include the festivals of Tyre, Bkassine, Batroun, Ehden, Qobeiyat and Ehmej.
Also on tour is Ziad Rahbani, who will have one-night gigs in Jezzine and Akkar-Rahbeh. At Beirut Holidays, Rahbani and Lisa Simone will perform July 19, for what promises to be a fun concert, combining jazz and Arabic classics.
Another high-profile Lebanese act, Elissa, will play Beirut Holidays on July 26, touting tunes from her 11th album, “Ila Kol Elli Bihebbouni,” as well as other favorites.
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Among Beirut Holidays’ anticipated foreign acts is renowned Greek pianist Yanni, who will bring his 2019 world tour to Beirut on July 23. Alongside his personal orchestra, Yanni will perform his most-loved pieces from his 40 platinum and gold albums.
Up the coast at Byblos, Queen fans will be treated to the spectacular two-hour show Queen Symphonic, on July 20, paying tribute to the legendary band. The performance will assemble 50 musicians and vocalists to deliver Queen’s most popular songs in true royal fashion.
Other big-ticket performers at Byblos include a standing-room-only show with Dutch DJ Martin Garrix on Aug. 3, whose high-energy blend of progressive house, electro and future bass will be accompanied by an impressive light show. Metal fans will have a chance to see popular Dutch band Within Temptation on Aug. 7, performing a two-hour spectacle, featuring tracks from their newly released seventh album, “Resist,” as well as old favorites.
Mashrou’ Leila’s legion of fans can help the band celebrate its 10th anniversary on Aug. 9. The Lebanese indie pop band will perform new tunes and share the stage with several guest artists, including Joe Goddard from Hot Chip and Andy Butler from Hercules and Love Affair.
Byblos’ climax will be “The Bach Project,” on Aug. 24, in which renowned Chinese-American cellist Yo-Yo Ma will reprise his performance of all six of Bach’s suites for solo cello in a single sitting.
The Baalbeck International Festival will open with Marcel Khalife’s “Ode to a Homeland,” which promises an evening of music and poetry. Baalbeck will commence relatively early in the season and the festival appears to have enjoyed robust box office activity, with several shows down to their final few hundred tickets and some of the cheaper sections sold out.
American jazz singer Melody Gardot will come to old Heliopolis on July 7 for a show featuring tracks from her four albums, peppered with jazz standards.
Fans of the music of the Arab golden age will be treated to “An Evening with Abdel Halim [Hafez]” on July 20, an audiovisual concert orchestrated and conducted by Hisham Gabr.
The show will feature the vocals of Mohammed Assaf and Noha Hafez, accompanied by the Romanian Orchestra and the Lebanese National Orchestra for Oriental-Arabic Music. In all, 50 musicians will celebrate Abdel Halim’s songs and movies on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of his birth.
In the Chouf, meanwhile, the Beiteddine Art Festival will revive the songs of Asmahan in “Liqa’ ala Sharq Jadeed” (“A Meeting on the New East”), which brings together Oscar-winning composer and musician Gabriel Yared and vocalist Yasmina Joumblatt, the great-granddaughter of the legendary Asmahan.
Gibran Khalil Gibran fans will have the chance to see a musical adaption of his biographical novel, “Broken Wings” (July 24-26). Created by Nadim Naaman and Dana al-Fardan, the show comes straight from London’s West End.
Iraqi crooner Kazem al-Saher has been booked for multiple Lebanese shows. He’ll perform three consecutive nights in the cool of Ehden (July 26-28), and appear at Beiteddine Aug. 1-3.
The festival season will wind down to the dulcet tones of Lebanese artists. At the Sidon International Festival, Sarah El-Hani will perform her tribute to the timeless tunes of Algeria’s Warda Al-Jazairia on Aug. 22.
Majida El Roumi will take the stage July 12 at the Jounieh International Festival, where she will sing her repertoire’s most-loved songs. Jounieh closes with a bang on July 18, with a show from Lebanese indie-rock band Adonis, complete with a fireworks show.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
