An enchanting journey begins

Vocal Award and Newcomer Award

Fatma Said El Nour

 Fatma Said (soprano), Malcolm Martineau (piano), Rafael Aguirre (guitar), Burcu Karada› (ney), Tim Allhoff (piano) et al Warner Classics 9029523360

In July 1984, Ahmed Said swam 100 metres freestyle and butterfly in 55.01 and 57.71 seconds. That’s impressively quick, if not entirely surprising – he was representing Egypt at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles at the time. A proud moment for the Said family, no doubt, but by no means the last. Ahmed’s strong lungs, natural talent and fierce determination evidently passed down a generation as, 37 years later, his daughter Fatma is making waves of her own. Not in the pool, however, but on the stage.

The first ever Egyptian soprano to perform at Milan’s La Scala, Fatma Said, now 29, has appeared on major stages across the world, rubbing operatic shoulders with the likes of tenors Rolando Villazón and Juan Diego Flórez and appearing as a soloist in Mozart’s Requiem at the BBC Proms. Recital partners, meanwhile, have included the clarinettist Sabine Meyer and pianists Malcolm Martineau and Roger Vignoles. Two years as a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist from 2016-18 provided a wealth of concert and recording experience before, in 2019, she signed a recording contract with Warner Classics. And it is her first disc, El Nour , that has won her both the jury-decided BBC Music Magazine Newcomer of the Year Award and also the Vocal Award, voted for by the public. ‘Listeners will swoon’ was how our reviewer Natasha Loges neatly put it. And swoon they have.

It’s not just Said’s elegantly alluring voice that marks out, however, but also the brilliant – not to mention daring – imagination of its programming. In a journey across France, Spain and north Africa – and singing in three different languages as she goes – Said combines works by the likes of Ravel, Berlioz and Falla with those by the less familiar Obradors, Serrano and Gaubert, rounding it all off with four Arabic songs at the end. Musical partners across the disc range from Malcolm Martineau and Rafael Aguirre as her piano and guitar accompanists to a string quartet and a Middle Eastern-infused jazz combo. There are twists and turns aplenty, most daring of which, perhaps, is the addition of the flute to ‘La flûte enchantée’, the central movement of Ravel’s , giving this most seductive of pieces an