Fayha National Choir, conducted by Maestro Barkev Taslakian, the artist Oumeima El Khalil and the artist Marcel Khalife, released their album: "Sawt" at House of Beirut Museum on January 11, 2019.
The work consists of eleven new songs composed by Marcel Khalife and arranged by Edward Torikian, and the texts are for a group of poets: Nizar Qabbani, Mahmoud Darwish, Talal Haidar, Mansour Al-Rahbani, Joseph Harb, Marwan Makhoul, Zahi Wehbi, Elias Lahoud, Abido Pasha and Boutros Rouhana.
The album idea has existed since 2011, but it entered into real work after 6 years, during which they witnessed almost daily training with the Fayha choir branches in Beirut, Tripoli and Cairo, until the completion of "Sawt".
The recording process did not require entering the studio, but took place in a live form, in which Oumeima's voice was accompanied by the voices of the "Fayha" choir, under the supervision of Dikran Ishkhanov, the sound engineer who came specially from Armenia, and the mastering was done by Khalil Shaheen in Germany.
"Sawt" has several features. The work is based entirely on the technique of oriental music, and the orchestra it is made up of human voices, not mechanical ones.
The work, based on these techniques and features, and with them the poetic and musical content, constitutes a pioneering Arab artwork.
On the other hand, Sawt is a qualitative step in the march of the Fayha choir, whose most important goal is to develop and disseminate Arabic music without changing it, and to present it to the world through collective singing.
There is no doubt that "Sawt" moves the oriental Arabic acappella to a new place, as it is considered a revolution in the field of distribution and lyrical performance in Arabic language and music.
