Sabri Moudallal

Sabri Moudallal (Arabic: ; 1918 – August 2006) was a singer and composer of traditional Syrian music, as well as a businessman.

Biography Sabri Moudallal was born in the Al-Jalloum neighborhood in Aleppo in 1918. Sabri Moudallal grew up in a musical environment, attending Sufi Zikr ceremonies with his father, who also sent him to Qur'anic school to memorize the Qur'an and study Quranic recitation, the musical recitation of the holy text. The teacher, recognizing the student's musical potential, suggested he go study properly under one of the greatest masters of classical Arabic music in Aleppo at the time, Omar al-Batsh. It was under al-Batsh that Moudallal learned the style and forms of classical Arabic music, the maqams, the muwashshah, the dawr, the layali, the qasidah and mawal and of course the traditional Aleppine qudūd. Moudallal has stated that the first piece he was taught by al-Batsh was al-Batsh's very own composition for the muwashshah Kaḥḥal as-Siḥr Oyunan in the Bayat maqam.

He eventually came to work as a muezzin at the Great Mosque of Aleppo. In 1949, he first sang on Syrian radio. In 1954, he founded a religious music ensemble along with fellow Aleppian sacred music singer, Hassan Haffar. According the Aleppian musicologist Muhammad Qadri Dallal, who studied Moudallal's music, his style was influenced by the great modern Egyptian composers, such as Sayyid Darwish, Mohamed El Qasabgi, Mohammed Abdel Wahab, Zakariya Ahmed and Dawood Hosni, which gave his music a new color that didn't previously exist in sacred Islamic music.

In 1997, a documentary for Syrian television called Aleppo... Maqamat of Pleasure and Delight, directed by Syrian director Mohamed Malas, was produced about Moudallal and his life. The film includes extensive interviews with Moudallal about his life and musical career.

In 1990s, he began to perform with Ensemble Al-Kindi, an Aleppian-based Sufi musical group. This collaboration led to the album The Aleppian Music Room, which came out in 1998.

In 2006, Muhammad Qadri Dallal published a study on Moudallal's music and its roots in the traditional Aleppine style.

Discography Muezzins d'Alep – Chants religieux de l'Islam, Ocora, Paris, 1980. Wasla d'Alep – Chants traditionnels de Syrie, Inedit, France, 1988. Sacred and Profane Songs of Syria, Institut de Monde Arabe, Paris, 1998. The Aleppian Music Room (with Ensemble Al-Kindi), 1998. Songs from Aleppo, Institut de Monde Arabe, Paris, 1999.