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gypt's Celebrated Orchestra of Visually-Impaired Women to Perform at Manasterly Palace

Al Nour Wal Amal – Egypt’s celebrated chamber orchestra made up entirely of visually-impaired women - will be returning with a special performance at the gorgeous Manasterly Palace on September 20th.

Staff Writer

They’ve been described as a ‘human miracle’ and the ‘fourth pyramid of Giza’, but a six month hiatus due to COVID-19 kept them silent, unable to share their music. But soon, Egypt’s all-female and all-blind musical ensemble, Al Nour Wal Amal Chamber Orchestra, will be returning with a special concert at the Manasterly Palace on September 20th.


Originally starting as an NGO in 1954, Al Nour Wal Amal served as the first organization in the MENA region to educate girls and women who were visually-impaired. The NGO then formed the Al-Nour Wal Amal Music Institute, which brought musicians from the Cairo Conservatory to train these women in all aspects of music, from learning about theory to reading music sheets that have been written in Braille.


The orchestra made their first appearance at Cairo's old Opera House in 1971, and began going on international tours in 1988, when they played at the Town Hall in Vienna. Since then, they've been all over the world, including Paris, Tokyo and Abu Dhabi. In 2009, they performed in Athens, Greece, to celebrate the city's selection as the host of the Special Olympic Games in 2011. And most recently, before the COVID-19 shutdown forced them to go into hiatus, they had been scheduled to perform in China and Saudi Arabia oin March, 2020.


For more information about the event, click here.