List of Egyptian composers

The following is a list of Egyptian music composers.

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

Riad El Sunbati sitting with Umm Kulthum. Back left - Mohamed Abdel Wahab.

Pioneers

From left: Riad El Sunbai, Umm Kulthum, Mohamed El Qasabgi, Farid al-Atrash, Zakariya Ahmad

According to the work of the Egyptian musicologist Samha El-Kholy, the first generation of Egyptians to begin writing in modern Egyptian classical style were born around the turn of the 20th century.^[1]

Among the most celebrated composers in Egyptian history who lived in the 20th century are Sayed Darwish, Mohamed El Qasabgi, Baligh Hamdi, Mohamed Fawzi, Zakariya Ahmad, Mohamed Abdel Wahab, Riad El Sunbati and many others.^[2]

First generation

• Sayed Darwish (1892–1923)
• Mohamed El Qasabgi (1892–1966)
• Zakariya Ahmad (1896–1961)
• Yusef Greiss (1899–1961)
• Abu Bakr Khairat (1910–1963)
• Hasan Rashid (1896–1969)
• Aziz El-Shawan (1916–1993)
• Dawood Hosni (1870–1937)

Second generation

• Mohamed Abdel Wahab (1902–1991)
• Riad El Sunbati (1906–1981)
• Farid al-Atrash (1910–1974)
• Kamel El-Remali (b. 1922),
• Awatef Abdel Karim (1931–2021)
• Gamal Abdel-Rahim (1924–1988)
• Sayed Awad (1926–2000)
• Halim El-Dabh (1921–2017)
• Aziz El-Shawan (1916–1993)
• Soliman Gamil (1924–1994)
• Rifaat Garrana (1929–2017)
• Tarek Ali Hassan (born 1937)
• Ezz Eddin Hosni (1927–2013)

Third generation

• Baligh Hamdi (1932–1993)
• Rageh Daoud (born 1954)
• Omar Khayrat (born 1949)
• Mona Ghoneim (born 1955)
• Sherif Nour (born 1958)
• Mohamed Abdelwahab Abdelfattah (born 1962)
• Sherif Mohie El Din (born 1964)
• Ali Osman (1958–2017)
• Adel Kamel (1942–2003)

Fourth generation

• Hesham Nazih (born 1972)
• Hisham Kharma

See also

• Opera in Arabic

References

1. Malcolm Floyd Composing the music of Africa: composition, interpretation, and realisation – Al-Ahram review of this book: chapter by Adel Kamel chapter "Egyptian Composition in the Twentieth Century,"
2. "كلاسيكيات الموسيقى العربية - الخمسة الكبار".

• Castelo-Branco, Salwa El-Shawan (2001). "Egypt: Western Music." In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed.
• El-Kholy, Samha (1992). Al-qawmiyya fī mūsīqā al-qarn al-‘ishrīn’ (Nationalism in 20th-century music). Kuwait: World of Knowledge.
• El-Kholy, Samha, and John O. Robison, eds. (1993). Festschrift for Gamal Abdel-Rahim. The Occasional Paper Series, v. 2, no. 2. Cairo: The Binational Fulbright Commission in Egypt.
• El-Kholy, Samha, ed. (1999). Al-ta'lif al-masri al mu'asir (Contemporary Egyptian Composition). Cairo.
• El-Shawan, Salwa (1985). "Western Music and Its Practitioners in Egypt (ca. 1825–1985): The Integration of a New Musical Tradition in a Changing Environment." Asian Music, v. 17, no. 1 (1985), pp. 145–153.
• Shehab, Yaz (1996). "Contemporary Egyptian Music." D.M.A. dissertation. Urbana: University of Illinois.