Nadira Al Shamiya

Collection of Songs

• Ya Bahr Al Niel (O Nile Sea)
• Yaqulon Layla Fi Al Iraq Marida (They Say Layla is Sick in Iraq)
• Ayuha Al Blbol Al Hanoun (Oh, Compassionate Nightingale)
• Ma Ahtiyali (What Is My Deception?)
• Saqet B Dam'i Khdud Al Ward W Al Yasmine (I Watered the Cheeks of Roses and Jasmine with My Tears)
• Ta'al Ya Blbol Al Bustan (Come, Nightingale of the Orchard)

• Ya Leil

Location Issued

Artist Origin

More Info

Nadira al Shamiya (1906-1990) was an Egyptian singer and composer of Armenian descent, whose real name was Anasi Zakharian. Her family fled to Damascus after the Armenian massacres at the beginning of the 20th century. She moved to Cairo in 1929, where she gave her first concert at the Ramses Theatre, singing songs by Daoud Hosni. She was trained by the musician Elie Kanaan, who taught her the basics of singing and how to play oud and Arabic maqams and scales. Nadira had a talent for impersonating known actresses. During one of her concerts, Italian director Mario Volpi happened to be in the audience, and was so impressed by her, she was chosen for the leading role in the first sound film with Arabic dialog, Anshoudat Al Fouad, which premiered in 1932 at the Diana Palace Cinema in Cairo. The film's great success made Nadira a big star in both acting and singing. She was inundated with film offers and nicknamed the Princess of Tarab. Her second film role was in 1934’s Shabah Al Madi, and her third and final film was Anshoudat Al Radio in 1936, directed by the Italian Tullio Cabrini. Cinema gave Nadira Al Shamiya an artistic birth certificate. She was first embraced by private radio stations and then by the official Egyptian Radio. For many years, the radio dedicated a weekly musical session to Nadira every Monday, in which she performed the Adwar and muwashahat of Mohamed Othman, Dawood Husni, Zakaria Ahmed, Mohamed Al-Qasabji, Sayed Darwish. She also performed her own songs, composed by leading Cairo musicians such as Al-Sanbaty, Zakaria Ahmed, Al-Qasabji and Mohammed Abdel Wahab. Nadira was a creative composer, as she composed a number of songs for herself, including Ya Rab A'tna Mn Amrna Rushda, Ya Warda Malik Zablana, and Jesh Baldna, which she sang for the Egyptian army going to fight in Palestine in 1948, and at the beginning of the July 1952 revolution, she also sang from her melodies Ya Masri Oum Ehmi El Wadi. She stopped singing in the early 1960s after radio stations turned away from her in favor of younger singers such as Laila Murad, Shadia and others.