DUBAI: With a career spanning 60 years, Saudi singer and oudist Mohammed Abdu, dubbed ‘The Artist of the Arabs,’ has been an inspiration to many and not just for his music. Abdu was born in Asir province, Saudi Arabia, on June 12, 1949. His father, a fisherman, died when Abdu was just three years old, leaving behind his wife and five other children. Mohammed Abdu performing
JEDDAH: Folk music traditions in Saudi Arabia are diverse and complex, combining distinctive tones, rhythms and melodies with poetry, percussion, and dances that have been passed down through generations. Over the centuries, poets and musicians have traversed the Arabian Peninsula and the wider Middle East, exchanging and combining modes of expression through song, music and
JEDDAH: A Saudi composer has recalled the Kingdom’s musical rebirth in the 1960s, when a public performance was staged to mark the return of King Saud from a trip abroad for medical treatment. Music was not allowed to be played publicly in the Kingdom before 1962, so people would play in secret, Saudi composer, author and researcher Mohammed Al-Senan recalled. “In public