One of the remarkable women in the world of music today, is the Lebanese composer and opera singer Hiba Al Kawas: Remarkable for talent, creativity, artistic and intellectual personality.

When Hiba Al-Kawas sang for a Unesco panel in 1984, the judges awarded her the first-place prize and offered her a music scholarship. Walid Gholmieh (1938 - 2011), now the late president of the Lebanese National Higher Conservatory, attended the recital. On hearing Hiba sing, he urged her to go directly to Paris to begin intensive musical training, she recalls.

Hiba declined the scholarship, saying she wanted to finish her studies in Lebanon. The idea of pursuing music as a career seemed preposterous to the then 12 years old. Music moved in her life not as a discipline but as an imaginary friend that never left her side, a beloved pet under her heels, or even a part of her own body.

"Music was part of me, like this hand," Hiba says, explaining why she waited another decade before choosing a vocation. "You would never imagine that you would specialize in your hand."

On graduating from the Lebanese University with a degree in clinical psychology, Hiba made music her choice and she describes it with characteristic high drama: "You cannot betray music to something else - especially music, my God. You cannot stop one day and forget it. It will forget you. A month, you will be rusty. Two months, you'll be nobody."

Of course, she's never tested this hypothesis. Trained in Lebanon and Italy as an opera singer, composer and a pianist, Hiba is now a professor and board member at her alma mater, the Lebanese National Conservatory.

Her mastery of Western operatic technique - in particular an impressive ability to sustain high note after high note without tiring her clear, powerful voice - has distinguished her among Arab performers and won the admiration of audiences across the Arab world and Europe.

National symphony orchestras in the Ukraine and Poland have recorded dozens of her compositions. More recently, she sang for former French president Jacques Chirac and performed in London with Amsterdam's Neuwe Ensemble.

Hiba's childhood makes her achievements seem like a prophecy foretold. She began reading and writing at age one and half. Shortly after that, her mother heard Hiba playing Jingle Bells by ear and put her in piano lessons. Another two years and she began inventing melodies.

As a child, she woke up earlier then her parents. "So, I would bring the telephone, and I'd call all my relatives to let them listen to the new songs. I did," she says. "And I used to sing and play piano over the phone. I used to start with my grandmother, then the other grandmother... then my aunt, all my aunts, and by the time I had finished, my parents would have woken up - I had my audience."

At age six, Hiba gave her first concert, playing piano at her school's graduation ceremony in Saida. By age 12 she had begun organizing her own concerts with a group of older music hobbyists and giving piano lessons to children.

She began university before her 16th birthday and opted for a degree in the social sciences. "I never showed up to class," she says. "I would just go for exams." Psychology disappointed Hiba in its ordinariness - she'd expected mind reading - but in retrospect, it suited her. "We always need to clean our masks," she says lightly.

Mysticism has always held a magnetic appeal for Hiba, and faith in a higher power gave her confidence. In her infancy, she "communicated with the molecules in the air, the beams of light."

In her youth, others treated her like an adult. "There was nothing that I couldn't do, that's what I used to think", she says, laughing. "For example, this person couldn't invent this - Hiba will do. That is how I used to say my name."

So, when she sang along with the American-born Greek opera singer Maria Callas and Syrian vocalist Asmahan - the beloved daughters of vastly different cultures, connected by song - She thought, quite naturally, why not an Arabic opera? Hiba will do.

Seated on a floor level leather couch in her Beit Meri apartment, her legs tucked comfortably under her, Hiba has the muscular relaxation of a jungle cat. Her low voice resonates with intensity as she considers the rituals that move her towards a new musical work.

"I am a person who can compose at any moment," she says. Sometimes that means entering a brief, intense trance as the theme of some new work flows through her fingers and onto the piano keys. "You get connected and you feel in a different way, you smell in a different way, you see in a different way, you listen in a different way". And then: "You go behind space and time."

Hiba takes her lyrics from Arabic poetry - such as verses by the Saudi poet Abdul Aziz Khoja, on her longtime Lebanese collaborator, Nada El-Hage. The music comes from somewhere more esoteric.

As she sits at the piano, composing the melody line, the entire work plays out in her head. "While I'm playing, you will hear pulses that you will not understand, because I am hearing orchestra," she says. "All the pulses and the orchestration are coming to my head, which I cannot express on the piano." Most of the time, she says, the finished piece will turn out exactly as she first heard it.

Hiba's offstage persona is dynamic, but her words carry only a fraction of the forceful emotion that fills her music. "Aspiration No 1," a 16 minute instrumental composition recorded by the Krakow Chamber Orchestra in 2000, opens with a series of bold violin strokes that make it instantly clear to the listener why Hiba likens music to "energy transmission." Even more restrained passages of the piece evoke powerful sensations of vigilant suspense and introspective mournfulness.

Political instability has made it difficult for Hiba to give many concerts in Lebanon during the last few years, but she feels a deep connection to her country and culture. On May 1, 2009, she gave a concert at the Casino du Liban.

When Hiba performs on a European stage, she does so as an Arab, and her symphonic compositions incorporate traditional Middle Eastern instruments. She has spent more than a decade developing the Arabic aria, what may become the cornerstone of the Arabic opera she hopes to write and perform. "I worked on the Arabic letter, which is very difficult and heavy on the voice, finding the right position to carry the vowels and the letters, throwing them without breaking the Arabic letters, because it's very important to keep the letter as it is," she says.

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(Extracts from the Book Creative Lives)

More about Hiba Al Kawas

As a composer, she has composed for symphony orchestra, chamber orchestra, string orchestra, various ensembles, piano and voice. In some of her compositions, traditional Arabic instruments are included in the orchestra. Her compositions combine Oriental-Arabic music components with international composition techniques, forming a bridge between Oriental-Arabic music, classical and neo classical forms and contemporary music. As such, she exhibits mastery in bridging cultural borders of the continents of music.

Hiba Al Kawas has recorded more than 20 works of her own composition with the Dnepropetrovsk Symphony Orchestra-Ukraine under the direction of Viascheslav Blenov. Ten works were recorded with the Krakow Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra. She has also recorded 20 works with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine and the National Choir of Kiev conducted by Vladimir Sirenko. In 2000 she was chosen to participate as a composer by the Krakow Contemporary Composition Festival where the Krakow chamber Orchestra played her Aspiration No.1, for which she was named Representative of Contemporary Composers of the year. The Polish composer’s association invited Al Kawas to the festival a second time, where her composition Moments in Krakow was given its world premiere by the Krakow Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Wojciech Czepiel, The same work was played again by The Lebanese National Symphony Orchestra, Cairo Symphony Orchestra and Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra. Her orchestral work, Pleusis 1, which was premiered in 2000 by the Lebanese National Symphony Orchestra, has also been played by the City of London Sinfonia, Cairo Symphony Orchestra, Krakow Symphony Orchestra, and Bolshoi State Theatre Symphony Orchestra.

Her composition, Rou'ia Fi Maa, received its premiere at the Opéra Bastille in Paris in 2007. The work comprises five instrumentals and three song pieces based on Arabic poems by Nada El Hage. Commissioned by the Festival d'Automne for contemporary music and performed by the Neuwe Ensemble of Amsterdam, she performed the soprano solos. On February 2007 Al Kawas sang in the presence of Jacques Chirac at the IMA in Paris where she dedicated her song O Liban soit sauvé! (Poetry of Nada El Hage) to President Chirac and to the memory of Prime Minister Rafic Hariri. Also in 2008 a short musical film Noor - Lady Light was produced based on Hiba Al Kawas' song Asra Biqalbi, a poem by Abdel Aziz Khoja (directed by Camille Mallat) and was screened in Beirut for the first time in 2008 and at the London International Documentary Film Festival in 2009.

Hiba Al Kawas performed her first concert at the age of six (she was born in Saida, Lebanon, 17 July 1972). She performed in many concerts in Lebanon, Syria, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Cairo, Tunis, Bahrain, Amman, London, Cairo, Paris, Bologna, Sienna, Italy, Stuttgart, Krakow, Kiev, Lisbon, Estoril, and Amsterdam. She has established a career in Lebanon and the Arab world introducing the concept of Arabic opera. It is a discipline that she advocates in a highly scientific manner, not to be confused with singing opera in Arabic, rather a new concept of composition for vocal music, since Arabic language embodies differences in style and performance. Thus her practical work led her to the Arabic operatic song, (arias in Arabic). She developed and adapted operatic vocal technique which allowed her to find the proper voice placement to preserve the Arabic pronunciation and singing tradition.

She frequently performs her own vocal compositions in concerts. Creating the Arabic Opera remains her main dream.

Hiba Al Kawas selects from Arabic poetry; poems that reflect and intersect with her new musical stream. She often crosses from the Sufi to the Contemporary Poetry, and has worked on Al Hallaj, Ibn Arabi, Ibn El Farid, Al Mutanabbi, Badr Shaker AL Sayab, Adonis, Hoda Naamain, Ounsi El Hage, Talal Haidar, Mahmoud Darweesh, Hamza Abboud, Abdel Aziz Khoja, Zahi Wehbi, Raghida Mahfouz and Nada El Hage.

She performed at the opening ceremony of Tyr Festival in Lebanon and the Al-Medina Festival in Tunis. In 2006, Hiba Al Kawas performed along with José Carreras in Dubai at the 2nd anniversary of the Dubai International Financial Centre, accompanied by the City of London Sinfonia Orchestra conducted by David Giménez Carreras and Brad Cohen. In addition to performing songs of her own composition, she sang a duet with Carreras. The 5th Abu Dhabi Music and Art Festival in 2008 was highlighted by her performance of new compositions inspired by Andalusian music, performed by the Bolshoi Theatre Symphony Orchestra, joined by the soloist Jose Maria Gallardo Del Rey on guitar. Commissioned by Neuwe Ensemble, she composed Sada Al Akwan, which was played by the Neuwe Ensemble during Gaudeamus Music Week.

In January 2009, she performed in Amman with Amman Symphony Orchestra conducted by Fuad Fakhoury. The Cairo Symphony Orchestra played her “Moments in Krakow” overture conducted by Marcello Mottadelli.

Her latest concerts include a performance at the Cadogan Hall and the Royal Society of Arts in London.

In May 2009 her concert at the theatre of Casino du Liban was a great and remarkable success that assured Hiba Al Kawas journey with her Arabic Opera implementation in the minds and hearts of the listener, creating from there a new step for her music personality. Al Kawas was accompanied with the International Guitarist Jose Maria Gallardo Del Rey and the Lebanese National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the Viennese Karl Sollak.

Al Kawas Closed the year 2009, contributing to the National Day of Bahrain where she has composed for the occasion, a complete Operatic scene, a work directed by the choreographer Walid Awni. Orchestra Roma Sinfonietta played the music with the participation of Cairo Opera House Choir.

Hiba Al Kawas composed the music of “As the Poet Said” a movie by Nasri Hajjaj about the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darweesh. The film was released beginning of 2010.

She has participated in May 2010 in the concert “Voices of Peace” organized by UNESCO with Qatar Foundation, in two performances in Doha and Paris in Unesco Theatre, accompanied by Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Amin Kouider.

On the Honor of Sultan Qabous Bin Said hosted by His Majesty the King of Bahrain, Hiba AL Kawas performed in this official occasion in Bahrain accompanied by the International Guitarist Jose Maria Gallardo Del Rey and Orchestra Roma Sinfonietta conducted by Karl Sollak.

Lately on June 2010 Al Kawas Opened Beit Eddine Festival on its 25th Anniversary, where she presented some world premiere songs and composition for the 7000 people audience who hear the new works for the first time. The concert was accompanied by the Lebanese National Symphony Orchestra Conducted by Walid Gholmieh.

Hiba Al Kawas opened the New Lebanese Ambassy in Qatar on the occasion of the 2010 Lebanese Independence day, in the presence of HRH Emir Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and the Lebanese President H.E. Michael Sulaiman upon the invitation and the request of H.E. Mr. Hassan Saad the Lebanese Ambassadors in Qatar.

On November 2010, Mrs. Al Kawas performed the Concert of WISE 2010 inder the Patronage and presence of Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned, accompanied by Qatar Phiharmonic and under the baton of conductor Andreas Weiser.

Hiba Al Kawas teaming up with poet Nada El-Hage have composed and performed in a series of music and poetry recitals in Lebanon and abroad.

Al Kawas is currently a member of the board at the Lebanese National Higher Conservatory and a professor of Opera Chant, and Composition there. She is a committee member of The Lebanese National Symphony Orchestra as well as a member of the High National Committee of Music at UNESCO. She is also a member of the Intellectual Property Committee of the International Chamber of Commerce. In 2005, she gave several lectures at the University of Amsterdam. She is the co-author of Methods for Elementary and Intermediate Music Stages in Lebanon (1997/1998) and the author of Methods for Teacher’s Training schools in Lebanon (2000).

She received several decorations and awards. Hiba Al Kawas received the decoration from His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al Said in 2007, The Golden Order of Sultan Qaboos for Culture, Science and Art. In July 2003, a Stamp on her name and picture was published in Lebanon.

The Lebanese Creativity Prize (2003). The Seal of Beirut (2001). The Seal of the American University of Beirut Alumni (1998). The Seal of the Lebanese American University Alumni of Abu Dhabi (1993).

Among her compositions, she wrote works for symphony orchestra that include Pleusis No.1 in 3 movements, (2000), Ilaik (Overture) (1995), Moments In Krakow (Overture) (2002), Baina Nahrain, (2004) , and In the Path of Light,(symphonic Poem) (2008). Another famous work for string orchestra is Aspiration No.1, (1999). Her chamber works include an octet: Wajd, (1994), a trio: Those days, (1995), and duets for oud and piano: Itab, (1997). Her compositions for piano include: Love Hurts, (1990), Faragh, (1991) and Rhapsody for Piano, (2005). She has several arias in Arabic for soprano, orchestra and some of them with choir as well. Her rich repertoire of compositions in this regard forms the backbone to the concept of Arabic Opera. Her mastery of melody and harmony, combined with brilliant orchestration, shows how Arabic language can enhance the Bel canto.