CAIRO — For nearly 30 years, his music has
made its way to every young Egyptian's ringtone — but it's the country's
ancient history that recently propelled composer Hesham Nazih to the realm of
superheroes.
اضافة اعلان
Following his career-defining score for the
Pharaohs' Golden Parade last year — a grandiose spectacle that saw 22 mummies
transferred across Cairo to a new museum — Nazih was tapped to write the music
for Marvel Studios' latest series, "Moon Knight".
The six-episode saga starring Oscar Isaac
tells the story of a superhero who draws his powers from an ancient Egyptian
god.
"Ancient Egyptian civilization is
extremely appealing for any composer, whether Egyptian or not," the
50-year-old composer told AFP from his studio in Cairo.
But while drawing inspiration from ancient
heritage was "not an artistic goal" in and of itself for the
musician, it has allowed him to realizes his dream of transcending national
boundaries.
Drawing on heritage
In April 2021, all eyes were on the globally
streamed procession of mummies through the capital, when Egyptian soprano Amira
Selim, clad in a full-length gown adorned with Pharaonic motifs, took the stage
with a haunting performance of the Hymn of Isis.
The ode, the lyrics to which were taken from
texts in the "Book of the Dead", was sung in phonetic ancient
Egyptian and featured an arrangement of traditional folk instruments along with
a classical orchestra, cementing the composer's genre-shattering prowess.
The result was a media fervor that took
Nazih himself by surprise, with the piece being shared widely both in Egypt and
abroad.
"The audience's reaction was very
moving," he told AFP, adding that the parade "holds a special place
in my heart" as it showcased the talents of Egyptian artists.
Riding the ancient Egypt high, the virtuoso
was selected to compose the score for Marvel's Moon Knight, marking his first
foray into Hollywood.
Helmed by Egyptian director
Mohamed Diab,
the series has proven massively popular among his compatriots — despite there
being no way to legally stream the show there yet — due in no small part to
Diab's insistence on the production being an Egyptian affair.
In addition to a cast and crew that brings
together the likes of Egyptian-Palestinian actress May Calamawy and Egyptian
editor Ahmed Hafez, the series soundtrack has been peppered with popular Arabic
songs, ranging from golden-era classics to modern electro street music known as
mahraganat.
"I'm still processing all of it.
Moon Knight is a whole other level for me," the composer said. "I was
seeing reactions from so many different audiences and cultures."
But Nazih's latest experimentations with
ancient Egypt weren't the first time he has drawn from Egyptian heritage.
For the 2014 thriller series "
The Seven Commandments", Nazih wove in spiritual Sufi chants, to massive success.
The soundtrack was a hit on social media, achieving a long-held dream for the
musician.
When he was nine, he explained, he stopped
halfway down a street in Alexandria to watch a Sufi ritual in a small mosque,
and was haunted by the "majesty" of the scene.
Decades later, he was finally able to
channel it into a composition.
No formal training
"Music doesn't communicate information,
it's pure emotion," according to Nazih, and it was emotion that took him
from a career as an engineer to creating more than 40 soundtracks for film and
TV over the past three decades.
Having first felt the impact of a great
score as a child, he has been chasing that high ever since. "I knew then
that I wanted to go into this field, to make people feel what I felt," he
said.
His music has defined famous films including
2003's "Sahar El-Layali" ("Sleepless Nights" in Arabic),
which was almost tipped as Egypt's submission for an
Academy Award for the Best Foreign Language Film that year.
In 2019, Nazih scored "Al-Fil al-Azraq
2" ("The Blue Elephant 2"), Egyptian cinema's highest-ever
grossing film, earning 100 million pounds ($5.4 million).
Over his career, he says he has seen the
once-stringent boundaries between music and film begin to dissolve.
"Film composers aren't recognized as
true filmmakers by directors because they're musicians, but they're not recognized
as musicians by their peers because they belong to the world of cinema,"
he said.
But things might be changing. In 2018, Nazih
was the first musician to receive the Faten Hamama prize at the Cairo
International Film Festival, which is awarded to renowned figures in cinema,
but had previously only ever gone to directors and actors.
Three years later, he was also recognized in
the musical world, winning a lifetime achievement award at the Cairo Opera
House Arabic Music Festival.
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