ABSTRACT
the nakba of 1948, the creation of the State of Israel, and the loss of Palestine marked the beginning of a new era. Large numbers of rich and middle-class Palestinians, businessmen and intellectuals, moved to Lebanon and established themselves in Beirut. One of them, Sabri al-Sharif, would soon help to create and construct a new “Lebanese music.” Al-Sharif (*1922 in Jaf a) was the director of the music and arts department of the Near East Radio Station, called al-Sharq al-adna. During the Second World War, the British founded the station in Jenin. In 1941, it moved to Jaf a, and in 1947–1948 to Jerusalem. After 1948, it opened its main of ce in Cyprus (Weinrich 2006:80). Halim al-Rumi, a musician and the father of the well-known Lebanese singer Majida al-Rumi, was told to contact musicians and composers in Beirut who would be interested in creating music that merged the local repertoire from the Bilad als-Sham with European music. the nakba had brought up many discussions on the failure of Arab regimes and politicians. to focus on the rural traditions of the Bilad al-Sham could, therefore, be seen as a political statement against the hegemonic influence of Egyptian culture. According to musicologist Victor Sahhab, this assumption is not pulled out of thin air. He says:
Some stated in public that Lebanese music should have nothing in common with Arab, or even Muslim, culture. Those people want to separate Lebanon from its Arabic and Islamic environment. They tend to search for very particular cultural forms, for example, in Lebanese villages, in order to show how much they dif er from villages in Syria, for example.
