I heard about him lately at my architecture school. I studied his works at Cairo’s downtown as a piece of architectural work, but lately I’ve discovered the other side of him. He studied music when he was a child and continued his studies at Paris while he was there for architecture school. He came back to Cairo in 1935 to practice architecture besides playing piano and composing music. His childhood was very inspiring, he was born at Khairy street (Sayda Zienab district). At his house, cultural and musical nights were held daily in Sayd Darwish‘s presence.
He designed the Academy of Arts and it was established in 1959. This academy is a large educational complex at Al Haram district that contains Cairo Conservatoire, Higher Institute of Artistic Criticism, Higher Institute of Arabic Music, Higher Institute of Cinema, Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts, Higher Institute of Ballet and High Institute of Folk Arts. Moreover, he was the first dean of the Cairo Conservatoire. It wasn’t the only participation in architecture, he also designed two hospitals at Giza, residential building at Garden City (Cairo) and Sayd Darwish hall at Al Hram.
He started his career life as a musician by composing “Isis prologue” in 1956 which was inspired of Tawfiq al-Hakim‘s novel (Isis, 1955) and it was dedicated to him. In 1959, He won The State Encouragement Award. Also he was known as the only composer that President Gamal Abd El Nasr attended a full concert of his composed symphonies and it was at Old Cairo Opera House.
He considered one of the pioneer generation of Egyptian music composers. He composed the first Egyptian symphony in a name of “La Symphonie Folklorique” and “La Suite Folklorique”.
Now it’s time for listening to his music masterpieces.
He died in in 1964 at his office at Cairo Conservatoire while he was seating with the institute’s first graduated class.
Links:
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Abu-Bakr-Khairat/312496128805921?sk=info
Sources:
ArchPlanet 