About the Cultural Personality of the Year

Omar Ali Mahmoud Khairat was born in 1947 in the Al-Sayeda Zainab neighbourhood in Cairo to a family who loved the arts. He had a passion for the piano, and with it discovered new musical domains in the Egyptian collective memory and personality. Khairat graduated from the Conservatoire and was among the first batch to graduate from the prestigious music institute, where he studied piano under the Italian Professor “Caro”, in addition to studying musical theories. He then moved on to study music composition at Trinity College in London, where his independent musical persona was formed, establishing himself as a professional composer who formulates his own musical visions with distinctive musical phrases.

Early on in his career, Khairat joined the band (Les Petits Chats), which was an Egyptian rock band formed in the early 1960s. He also played the drums in various groups, which noticeably influenced his music, as evident in his creations, ‘The Maid’ and ‘Arabian Rhapsody’, among others. The public was first introduced to Khairat with the soundtrack for the 1983 film ‘The Night Fatima was Arrested’.