Meet the mother of three who is Egypt's first female maestro
Eman Genedy has conducted several orchestras and made a name for herself in a conservative society that frowns upon women singing, let alone conducting an orchestra.
Female orchestra conductors are rare in the world, let alone in the Middle East. However, Eman Genedy has been making a 25-person orchestra play to her tune for the last 13 years.
Genedy, 60, Egypt's first female maestro, hails from conservative Upper Egypt. A mother of three, she has dark skin like much of the population of Upper Egypt and wears a hijab, both on and off stage.
“I never imagined that I would be a conductor. As I loved music, I thought I would sing or play an instrument, but to be a maestro — it was beyond my imagination,” Genedy told Al-Monitor.
Nevertheless, the house where she grew up in Beni Suef, a city 71 miles (115 kilometers) north of Cairo, was filled with music and poetry. Her father, an engineer, played the lute and the piano. All the children — her sister, brother and herself — also played the piano.
