by Paul Matheson

For over 50 years, Fairuz has been one of the most admired and influential singers in the Arab world. She was born in Lebanon into an Eastern Christian Syriac Orthodox family, in one of the oldest Christian communities in the world. This music for Good Friday comes from the very heart of her religious and cultural inheritance.

I listen to this music every Easter. In the year 2020 these songs have connected with me more profoundly than ever which I attribute to the anguish of the current pandemic crisis seeming to resonate with the depth of emotion expressed in these songs. You can go online to listen to Fairuz singing El Yom Ollika, the 15th Antiphon at Matins of Good Friday at a church in Beirut in Lebanon in 1965.