Arab Singer Hajjar Hits Out at Cartoons

“My new play which was shown in Cairo earlier this month, focused on this issue”, he said in an interview with Khaleej Times .

Al Hajjar made the remarks after the musical concert he performed as part of the Million Poet Programme, organised by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage at the Theatre of the Cultural Foundation in Abu Dhabi.

The scenes in these films are all fraught with violence, have explosives, hazardous materials in the fight scenes, Al Hajjar said.

He urged parents to pay attention to the threat these films pose on their children and work seriously on finding suitable substitutes.

He praised the Million Poet programme saying that the patronage of General Shaikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces has promoted art and music greatly.

He said he is currently making arrangements for presenting a joint-art project with the Egyptian poet, Ahmed Bakheet, who won the third position in the Prince of Poets competition 
last year.

Bakheet’s poems which he will sing, will allow him to make a comeback to singing poems, which he believes is as important when he had successful experiences when he sang four poems written by the late Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish, and at least 40 pieces of Sameeh Al Qasim’s work.

Other melody-composed poems he has sung were written by Amal Dongol, Salah Jaheen and Prince Abdul Rahman bin Massad.

He said the poems of the late Nazzar Gabani are the easiest to sing for what he described as having a special rhythm that match the way they were 
structured. He justified his unwillingness to re-launch another political album like the earlier one titled, ‘Lam Al Shaml’.

He said, “I am not Al Shaikh Imam or Marcel Khalifa, but when a big event like the Gulf war takes place, which created new geopolitics in the region, I must interact and react, as at that time I was gearing up for launching a
new album.”

He however said he had replaced the songs in the album with political pieces that call for unity and togetherness in the face of forthcoming changes.

adel@khaleejtimes.com