 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(May 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) |
The Cairo Celebration Choir (CCC) was founded in 2000 by Nayer Nagui when Dr. Sobhi Bidair was the director of the Cairo Opera House Company at that time. The main idea of forming the choir was to perform a Christmas Concert with the Cairo Opera House soloists and orchestra in the annual Opera House Christmas Concert. [1]
Nayer Nagui is an Egyptian composer, conductor, musical director and pianist. Educated in Egypt, London and Paris, he has led orchestras internationally and frequently conducts the Cairo Symphony Orchestra, among the youngest orchestral directors in Egypt. He is also the musical director of the Cairo Celebration Choir, which he founded.
The Cairo Opera House, part of Cairo's National Cultural Centre, is the main performing arts venue in the Egyptian capital. Home to most of Egypt's finest musical groups, it is located on the southern portion of Gezira Island in the Nile River, in the Zamalek district near downtown Cairo.
Its first Christmas Concert performed a repertory of Christmas songs adapted, orchestrated and arranged by Maestro Nayer Nagui. Since then the choir has grown in number comprising more than 120 members of diverse nationalities who are affiliated with numerous Cairo music academics and societies. [1]
The Cairo Celebration Choir recorded Mozart’s Ave Verum conducted by Sherif Mohi ElDin as part of the Mozart CD selection of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. The choir also sang a selection of musicals in the opening of the 30th Cairo International Film Festival in 2006. Many members of the Cairo Celebration Choir joined the A Capella Choir (Cairo Opera House Official Choir) in March 2006 for the performance of Gustav Mahler's Second Symphony known as the "Resurrection" under the baton of Gilbert Kaplan. [2]
Gustav Mahler was an Austro-Bohemian Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th century Austro-German tradition and the modernism of the early 20th century. While in his lifetime his status as a conductor was established beyond question, his own music gained wide popularity only after periods of relative neglect, which included a ban on its performance in much of Europe during the Nazi era. After 1945 his compositions were rediscovered by a new generation of listeners; Mahler then became one of the most frequently performed and recorded of all composers, a position he has sustained into the 21st century. In 2016, a BBC Music Magazine survey of 151 conductors ranked three of his symphonies in the top ten symphonies of all time.
Gilbert Edmund Kaplan was an American businessman and financial publisher. He was also an aficionado of the music of Gustav Mahler, and an amateur conductor of Mahler's Symphony No. 2.
