“SEE” news interviewed Dr Magdy Sabir, Head of the Egyptian Opera House on the sidelines of a news conference launched by Society of Friends of Manyal Museum to declare details of the second version of Qasr Al Manyal Music Festival. The festival runs from October 28 to November 9. Ministries of Culture and Tourism foster the festival officially.
At first, What is the responsibility of Ministry of Culture towards the organizations of civil society?
-Dr Saber: The ministry seeks to embrace those organizations and encourage them because they are a main partner who play role in propagating arts, culture and upgrading public taste.
Official bodies couldn’t work alone without societal assistance.
Groups of civil society bring European music bands, launch Egyptian-European interactive workshops to convey expertise.
The bands attract more audience so they upgrade the public taste of modern music.
What is the point of the official sponsorship, does it include censorship?
-Dr Saber: The official sponsorship was requested officially by management of the festival.
That evidence proves that the state encourages and helps all new cultural institutions to merge and take part in the cultural main stream.
Cooperation between the Egyptian Opera House and Cultural Development Fund was existing ahead of declaring the official sponsorship when the late opera singer Hassan Cami was acting as manager of the music festival years earlier.
The organizations enjoy the official sponsorship come under censorship to prevent them from offering vulgar shows which would hurt public taste of the Egyptian people.
Is their good sign regarding the growth in the number of art festivals in Egypt has?
Dr. Saber: Art festivals in Egypt aren’t sufficient to answer the needs of the large Egyptian audience in various governorates.
The Higher Committee of Festivals considers applications submitted to it for a long time to know the source of funds and their targets to protect the public interests.
On the other hand, the Arab audience admires art festivals held in Egypt and attend them year after year.
There is a healthy competition between the art festivals held in Egypt and others launched in the Arab countries.
But the Egyptian art history and the leading place of the Egyptian artists add more.
It is a surprise how some people comments on performance of Mohamed Munir at opening of the first conference of Arab Music.
He offers an original Egyptian art along with Nubian songs throughout 40 years of his art career.
It is worth mentioning that Society of Friends of Manyal Museum chaired by Prince Abbas Helmi III, Grandson of , Abbas Helmi II, mounts Qasr Al Manyal Music Festival.
Nine music bands came from France, Australia, Bulgaria, Japan, Egypt, Iraq and Turkey perform days and nights in the festival.
The festival aims to keep the music heritage and enrich it via multi-national workshops to produce international music.
Contributed by Ahmed Moamar
Follow the latest news on Google News
