Maestro of generations

Since the creative maestro Salim Sahab settled in Cairo, he was able to create for himself an artistic aura that emerged from his talent and his cultured and aware artistic personality. As soon as Salim Sahab is mentioned, it means high-end art. Over many years, he has presented beautiful art and wonderful melodies. Some time ago, Maestro Salim Sahab took a step that is considered pioneering and a role model for artists and civil society. He saw that children, especially in recent years, had begun to incline towards the path of violence, terrorism and crime. Because art is beauty that does not accept the ugliness of dark ideas, he decided to turn to children in foster homes in Egypt. He listened to more than eight hundred children, and chose more than a hundred of them and found those with good vocal talent to join what is known as the “Egypt Children’s Choir.” He taught them music and melodies that would remove all that is bad from their thinking.

The workshop began with a training camp on memorizing tunes and lyrics, and nourished their emotions with Egyptian national songs. Not only that, but in addition to the music lessons, there were also guidance lessons in national and moral education.
Last week, I watched an episode in which media figure Wael Al-Ibrashi hosted Maestro Salim Sahab, along with a group of children from foster homes who joined the “Egypt Children’s Choir.” It was one of the most beautiful episodes presented by Wael Al-Ibrashi, as it shed light on a bright side of society that inspires hope for tomorrow and the future.

Maestro Salim Sahab talked about how he wanted to fight extremism and terrorism with art and from this starting point this idea came to him. He gave an example that he knew a person in Lebanon who worked as a sniper during the Lebanese civil war and was paid five hundred dollars for every person he killed with his rifle. One day, he learned to play the oud, and when he entered the world of music, he completely repented from the world of crime to the point that he was no longer able to even kill a cockroach. For the sake of his idea, Maestro Salim Sahab toured the Egyptian governorates to gather artistic talents.

The surprise of the episode was when the children of the orphanages spoke, as they expressed great patriotism, love and belonging to Egypt in a big way. Mustafa, the owner of the beautiful vocal talent, stood out among them and his eyes teared up more than once during the episode. He said that in the past we were buried in life and that he suffered a lot, as did his colleagues, but this became a thing of the past after music entered his life and promised him a bright future. During the episode, the artist Hani Shaker called and spoke to the children and sang with them, as well as the artist Nadia Lotfy who considered that Salim Sahab is an artist who set an example for other artists because he practically played an effective role in society, which made us feel guilty for our shortcomings towards the children of our country. The artist Talat Zakaria also called and promised to join them while they conduct rehearsals and study music to encourage them to continue and be creative.

Maestro Salim Sahab’s step is a pioneering and wonderful step for a special person who knew how to take the hands of children who have suffered in their lives and missed the warmth of a family, towards a bright future full of hope. The maestro who has dazzled adults, here he is creating a generation of artists who are artistically cultured and morally fortified. He is truly the “maestro of generations.”