The Grand Egyptian Museum Opening Ceremony was wonderful. Back to Tumblr for a bit because I can't let this blog be without a post documenting this wonderful ceremony. In case you missed it, it was on November 1st, the live event as a whole was about 3-4 hours long, but the channel of The Grand Egyptian Museum on Youtube edited out the commentaries by media outlets and other guests in the event, and posted two distilled videos of the ceremony, one is the original ceremony as is, the other has the narration bits in English, it is not dubbed (I strongly dislike dubbing), it is the same one with the same atmosphere but with the narration bits in English, voiced by the same artists and performers as the original.
So, here are the two videos, the first one is the ceremony as is, the second is the one with the narration bits in English. I watched them both fully, the two videos are neat, but of course the one with the original narration is just a tiny bit smoother. Take your pick, or watch them both, more than once, which, I believe, is what you are going to do; I dare you not to. Here is the first one (and here is its url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpsCXRsfvpM, the museum's Youtube channel weirdly made this one private!):
And here is the second one with the narration bits in English (and here is its url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15hf3VFzYVc, in case it is not showing here on Tumblr or in case the museum's Youtube channel weirdly changes the availability or the shareability of this one too!):
Pay attention to the notes that appear on screen, because they are quite descriptive, and the ceremony is devided into themes.
The very first musical composition is a century old composition by none other than the great Egyptian composer, singer, and songwriter Sayed Darwish, beloved of all Egyptians. The original composition by Sayed Darwish has vocals with lyrics about the heritage that our ancient Egyptian ancestors left for us, about the greatness of Egyptian history, the Pyramids, and my favorite part of the lyrics is the part that says about our ancient Egyptian ancestors "our ancestors created wonders ... thousands of years belong to them, and the world may end, but they will remain extant".
Egyptian soprano Sherin A. Tarek draws us closer at the beginning, and I love how after starting to draws us in, she takes a few steps closer to us herself, and she does it more than once, which is in line with how the "Melody of Peace" should be about everyone in the world taking at least a step closer to each other; I don't know if that was choreographed or if she did that on her own, maybe even unconsciously out of an understanding of Hisham Nazih's musical genius, if so, then what a brilliant woman she is in general, in addition to the brilliance of her musical talent.
I want to mention one thing here that I mentioned before in my posts 4 years ago about the Pharaohs' Golden Parade and the Sphinx Avenue Opet Festival, which is that I believe that when it comes to music, among other things, nations have this psychological tendency to produce distinct music that is characteristic to them and that capture something about them, without even being aware of it. The "Melody of Peace" shows that even when it is the same composition created by the same composer (the brilliant Egyptian composer Hisham Nazih) there will still be something in the music that will represent the different nations, even the nation that should have the least obvious musical distinction, which in this case is the United States, still shows a distinction; here, it is the bold and projecting spirit which reflects the character of Americans in general, their part of the melody is almost individualistic in spirit, it made the Statue of Liberty in the background seem like it has just lifted its torch proudly. In fact, my first perception that Americans have a musical style even in established classical music was way back after listening to Leonard Bernstein's interpretations and works. Despite their foreign policies and the bad things that their military did over the decades, Americans should be appreciated as the ones that are currently holding the torch of liberty high in their own country; not perfect, but way higher than the majority of nations. This is also, again, a testimony to the brilliance of Hisham Nazih.
Hisham Nazih is representing the themes throughout this entire ceremony with musical finesse. Egyptian musical instruments are also present, mostly inconspicuously; listen closely, and watch closely.
It is an absolute joy that our beloved Egyptian icon Sherihan was in this event, narrating and making an appearance, she has been doing such things for a long time. This may not be significant to non-Egyptians, but every Egyptian was ecstatic to see her in this event.
Meow. Cats are represented in passing, after the darbuka came to the foreground around minute 20:00; thanks, Hisham Nazih.
Oh, and the current official name of our country was uttered, I consider this an invitation to be disgusted and to say something about it. Every single one of us Egyptians has the right to say it: that disgusting word in the official name of our country must be removed, enough with that disgusting political nonsense that was created by the damn parasitic Levantines and foisted on Egypt until it was adopted by misguided Egyptian leaders in the 1960s. We Egyptian nationalists must be more demanding about this, eventually we will have our way, we are a sovereign nation, it is time for our leaders to act as such in this regard. Not only do we want to remove that disgusting word, but also our country deserves its original ancient Egyptian name restored: kmt/kmy/ⲕⲏⲙⲉ.
The beautiful, magnificent ancient Egyptian language is present in this ceremony both in an older form and in its Coptic stage. The beautiful Coptic stage of our ancient Egyptian language is present in a Christian hymn and in the song about the Nile. The Modern Egyptian Language, Masri, which is the language that we Egyptians currently speak (which has Coptic as its substrata and follows a subset of Coptic grammar) is also present both in the narration and in the songs.
The disgusting Arabic language was present, but only in limited places, mainly in a speech and a single part of the narration; and no, I'm not going to be nice about this; it is the language of a bunch of vile Semitic West Asian nomadic marauder Arabs that invaded our country at our time of weakness, due to the dying of the Byzantine empire, and did what nomadic marauders do, raid and plunder and pillage, and they are still nomadic-marauding in many ways using their petrodollar instead of swords, and they will not stop because they desire a complete death of Egypt, which is never going to happen, but that is not the point. Here in this case, the only non-disgusting thing about that disgusting language is that it is pronounced with an Egyptian tongue and Egyptian pronunciaion, which renders it palatable to an extent, because any Egyptian trying (and always having the honor of failing) to speak that disgusting language will do so without the sounds, the intonation, the articulation, etc, that make the Arabs sound disgusting, among many other things (by the way, these nomadic marauder Arabs are always vile toward Egyptians, but they are currently being more vile than usual toward Egyptians, with organized cyberbullying, and nomadic-marauding the comments on every Egyptian post online, with insults thrown left and right at Egyptians, and the remarkable thing is how organized they are this time, so I decided to mention this here at the risk of tarnishing this post, because you will see it everywhere you look; these nomadic marauder Arabs are actually worse than the deluded Afrocentrists, but one fight at a time, or all at once, whatever).
The Nubian language, or to be precise one Nubian langauge, was there as well, at the beginning of the song about the Nile. Nubian Egyptian brethren are generally nice people.
The song about the Nile is in Masri and the Coptic stage of our ancient Egyptian language; in Masri by Egyptian singer Haneen El-Shater, she also wrote the song, it is essentially a love song for the Nile and the effect the Nile has on our Egyptian psyche, she describes the Nile, its beauty, its kindness, its generosity, and its warm presence in our country and in our hearts, followed by a chant for the Nile in the Coptic stage of our beautiful ancient Egyptian language. The Nile figures heavily in our Egyptian songs by the way, so one more beautiful song for the Nile. And, I love that with the focus on the Nile comes naturally the focus on the fact that our ancient Egyptian civilization is an agricultural civilization, every detail of our ancient Egyptian civilization is based on farming in one way or another, being an Egyptian is being an agriculturalist to the core, which manifests itself in our general attitude, it is who we are.
I'm not going to say anything about the attire, the choreography, and the visual harmony of the entire ceremony, except from saying that I'm not going to say anything about the attire, the choreography, and the visual harmony of the entire ceremony.
Nice touch showing Egyptian obelisks adorning several places in the civilized world; it is a moment that is both happy and sad, whether we Egyptians should be more happy or more sad is something to ponder, but nice touch, obelisks are a wondrous Egyptian creation.
You know what else is a nice touch, a kid exploring the museum, that is how adults will also feel, let us all cherich the things that make us feel like kids again.
And look at those violins played perfectly by these two wonderful Egyptian violinists (Amira and Mariam), I'm still humming those notes and swinging to and fro. It is a nice thing when violinists come in two's. The violins perfectly convey the overwhelmingness one might feel amongst all the beauty of that large amount of artifacts and monuments, the kid was racing the violins, so should the kid in each one of us.
Egyptian soprano Fatma Said is always wonderful, both when she sings and when she narrates. She narrates in Masri (and in English in the second video) and also sings in Masri in the Final Song.
The Final Song is in Masri (by Egyptian soprano Fatma Said), English (by Egyptian soprano Sherin A. Tarek), and ancient Egyptian (by Egyptian Opera singer Ragaa El Din and the rest of the vocalists); of course the ancient Egyptian part of the Final Song is the best, and that is not an opinion; Hisham Nazih obviously knew it as well, few ancient Egyptian words overtook the whole song, rightfully. And how beautiful is it that the last two words in the Final Song and in this ceremony itself are in the ancient Egyptian language, the last word being the original true name of our country: nts kmt.
