Anwar Mansy

Anwar Mansi was born in 1922 from an Egyptian musical family. He is the son of Al-Azhari Abdel Wahhab Mansi, a famous songwriter at the beginning of the twentieth century and a well-known choir owner. He traveled to many Arab countries with his choir. Anwar Mansi had an older brother, the famous qanun player Abdel Fattah Mansi, and both of them had a Jewish mother who converted to Islam at the hands of their father after escaping and marrying her. She is called Almaz, and she is the daughter of a Jewish rabbi in Jerusalem who traveled with Abdel. Al-Wahhab Mansi was transferred to many countries and gave birth to Abdel Fattah in Iraq and Anwar two years later in Damascus. Anwar Mansi has a half-brother from his father, violin player Jamil Mansi. Anwar Mansi was born in a musical atmosphere filled with Arabic music and various maqams, in addition to memorizing many daurs and muwashahat at that time. When his father, Abdel Wahab Mansi, noticed his son’s talent in music, he made him study world music and the academic study of the violin at the age of six, at the hands of many experts in the field of world music. He completed his violin lesson under the expert Monsieur Armnac, who is a teacher of both Professors Mohamed Hajjaj and Attia Sharara and many teachers of this generation at the Ibrahim Shafik Institute of Music in the Abdeen area. In general, Anwar Mansi benefited from all the data of music. He was ahead of his time in his study of world music in addition to the Arabic music in which he lived. He was the first to be able to mix world and Arabic music, which is difficult for many musicians to this day, and this is due to this. Because of his extraordinary talent, Anwar Mansi was not an ordinary musician, to the point that newspapers at the time called him “the Muzar of Egypt” in comparison to his early talent. The palace also included him in its care, and he became one of the musicians who regularly visited the royal palace to play. Anwar Mansi was the youngest player standing behind Umm Kulthum, holding the violin, when he was not yet sixteen years old. Anwar Mansi became a companion of all the great artists and a friend to them, such as Umm Kulthum, Muhammad Abdel Wahhab, Muhammad Fawzi Farid Al-Atrash, and all the artists, and his presence in any band was an honor for everyone, in addition to his high price as a player. He participated with the Diamond Band and recorded the most wonderful musical works in addition to special prayers with them, and it remains a beacon for violin players to this day. This. Anwar Mansi died in 1961 at the height of his youth (39 years old) following a painful accident, falling from the back of a horse in the area of the pyramids in Giza, which claimed his life instantly.