Youssra El Hawary is an Egyptian accordionist, composer, singer and songwriter. She started learning piano at age eight and learnt the accordion in 2010. In early 2012, she started her musical career uploading four songs of her own to her soundcloud profile, before staring to performing with her accordion alone, with her first ‘Live’ Performance taking place in Cairo on March 2012.
In a very short time, Youssra became one of the most outspoken female voices in Egypt, receiving a lot of attention in process. Her songs tell stories and takes a swipe at the Egyptian socio-political scene.
Her first music video El Soor (The Wall) was a hard-hitting political commentary about the Egyptian situation. Later on she founded the band and they worked together on the arrangement of her songs and developed the music. Since then, they have been playing concerts and performing in festivals locally in Egypt as well as abroad.
Please follow this wonderful MOCAfest artist here at her official website, Facebook and you can follow her on SoundCloud here.
The following interview was extracted from Ahram and you can jump to the full piece here.
A rising star on accordion: Yosra El-Hawary
Overnight, a young Egyptian female underground talent has become one of Egypt’s rising musicians. Was she really waiting to shine in the music scene, anxious to be discovered?
“Well… not at all,” Yosra El-Hawary, 28-year-old singer, musician, and actress comments. “Composing music for me was always a hobby, and singing was only for myself or at casual gatherings with my friends… part of the fun we normally have,” El-Hawary tells Ahram Online.
“I never considered myself a singer and being noticed today was only by pure chance,” she believes.
Overnight, El-Hawary found herself on popular television talk shows presented by some of Egypt’s most famous television hosts Amr Adeeb and Yusri Foda. “It took me by surprise to be honest and until now I still don’t believe it,” she says.
El-Hawary was raised in Kuwait as a child, where she had her first music lessons. “I took piano lessons and at school I used to play the accordion. You would often find me at the school choir every morning,” she recalls.
During her high-school years, El-Hawary’s family moved back to Egypt, where she finished her high-school degree and attended the Faculty of Fine Arts, majoring in Theatre and Cinema design.
One might think that her passion for music would have taken her to the Music Conservatory, but “at the time I was in love with theatre and cinema… becoming an actress was one of my dreams,” she giggles.
“But by my junior year, I resumed my piano lessons, frightened of losing what I had learnt as a child,” she tells Ahram Online.
Following graduation, El-Hawary worked at one of Egypt’s leading advertising and marketing agencies but pursued acting as well.
“My collage buddy Salam Yousry had founded the El Tamye (Clay) Theatre group and I asked him to join,” she recalls.
El-Hawary starred in one of El Tamye’s biggest performances ‘Tamye Wahid Wel Shagar Alwan” (One Clay Whereas Trees Are Coloured), which included an artistic evening, dedicated to Egyptian musician Sayed Darwish. “With the music background I have, I was part acting, part singing and playing music among the other group members,” El-Hawary explains.
Continuing her work with Yousry, she joined Mashrou’e Coral (The Choir Project), to which she brought her buddy… the accordion.
“In the accordion, I found my complete orchestra,” she laughs. “It has a harmonious combination of sounds and thanks to my piano lessons, I could master its keys,” she states.
At first the accordion was a struggle, El-Hawary describes, “but after a short time, I could compose my songs on it.”
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