Nabil Salameh

In 1948, fourteen years before his birth, following the establishment of the state of Israel his parents fled from Jaffa.

In Lebanon Nabil's father was a UN officer and UNRWA supervisor of institutes for Palestinian refugees' education.

When in Lebanon, Nabil attended the Greek Orthodox college in the Christian district of Tripoli.

Nabil Salameh, also known as Nabil or Nabil Bey (born 1962 in Tripoli, Lebanon), is a Palestinian singer, songwriter, musician, artist and journalist, founder of the world music bands Radiodervish and Al Darawish.

To carry on his studies he firstly moved to Romania, where he enrolled in the University of Bucharest at the time of Nicolae Ceauşescu, eventually moving to Bari in Italy in 1983 to study Electrical Engineering at the local University.

In 1988 Salameh founded the band Al Darawish.

The group invented a style of their own by playing several instruments coming from various areas of the Mediterranean region.

In 1990, Al Darawish took part in the Biennale des Jeunes Créateurs d'Europe et de la Méditerranée in Marseille.

In 1991 they were selected and performed for the musical festival Arezzo Wave among other artists, then played at Carrefour de la Mediterranée in Thessaloniki in Greece.

In 1993, Al Darawish recorded their first album Al Darawish, which was presented live from the auditorium of the national network RAI Radiotelevisione Italiana on Radio3.

In the same year Al Darawish were guests at the Babylon festival in Iraq.

In 1994, Nabil performed in Bari for the very first time with the Israeli singer Achinoam Nini aka Noa, with whom he has sung many times during his career.

In 1995, Al Darawish were guests at Musicultura for the sixth edition of Premio Città Recanati and to the acclaimed Concerto del Primo Maggio, a musical event held every year on Labour Day in Rome.

In July 1995 the movie Trafitti da un raggio di sole was released, with Al Darawish signing the soundtrack and Nabil playing a part himself as an actor.

In 1996, Al Darawish recorded their second album Radio Dervish.

In 1997 Al Darawish disbanded.

In the same year this was followed by the formation of the new band Radiodervish, by Nabil Salameh and Michele Lobaccaro, co-performer and co-founder of Al Darawish.

Also in 1997 Nabil was asked to sing the anthem of the thirteenth edition of the Mediterranean Games, a multi-disciplinary sports event joined by athletes from the Mediterranean region: that year the games were held in Italy and Nabil was chosen as a Palestinian artist to perform for such event, for the very first time ever.

Between 1998 and 2007 he worked as a foreign correspondent for the international network Al Jazeera, providing the western point of view relevant to international events, such as the September 11 attacks.

Nabil Salameh was born in Tripoli in Lebanon, eighth of nine children, three males and six females, from Palestinian refugees.

In 1998 Radiodervish recorded their first album Lingua contro lingua, published under the label I dischi del mulo and distributed by the multinational recording company Polygram: this work was awarded best record debut of the year by the Italian musical contest Piero Ciampi.

In November 1999, Nabil took part in Music for Peace, held in Paris, together with other international artists such as Gregory Peck, Sidney Poitier, Lionel Richie, Peter Ustinov, Zucchero.

At the end of the year, Nabil duetted with Jovanotti (born Lorenzo Cherubini) for the video recording of the latter's track Stella Cometa, and it was in that occasion that Jovanotti asked Nabil Salameh to render that song lyrics in Arabic and sing it.

That is how Cherubini's single CD Dolce Fare Niente Remix turned out with three tracks, the first homonymous sung in Italian by Jovanotti, the second, Stella Cometa / Stella d'Oriente, as a duo by Cherubini/Salameh and the third Stella d'Oriente totally sung in Arabic by Nabil Salameh.

July 2000 brought to Nabil Salameh and the Israeli singer Achinoam Nini the recognition of honorary citizenship by the Mayor of Melpignano, who awarded the two artists for their continuous effort and commitment to build relationships between different cultures and for their effective activism for peace.

In December of the same year, Nabil and Noa performed together on stage in a special concert for peace held in the Cathedral of Monreale and directed by Nicola Piovani with the Sicilian Symphonic Orchestra, for the United Nations convention against transnational organized crime, in presence of delegates from 189 nations.

The activity for peace of the two artists has been also appreciated by the association Accademia del Mediterraneo, which awarded them with Premio Mediterraneo arte 2001 for the usage of the universal language of music as a means to peace.

In March 2001 Nabil Salameh and Michele Lobaccaro presented a new musical project by Radiodervish, In Acustico, at La Vallisa in Bari, a church dating back to the tenth century now transformed in an auditorium.

The project was meant to sustain the activities of the association Salaam ragazzi dell'olivo to support the children in the Palestinian refugee camp of Al Fawwar, in Hebron, West Bank.

In June 2001, Salameh and Radiodervish are invited to perform in Beirut for the Fête de la Musique, held internationally on 21 June any year and in Lebanon for the very first time that year.

In 2002, Radiodervish was still touring with their project In Acustico.

In January, Nabil and Radiodervish took part in the yearly concert held for Epiphany festivity, broadcast by RAI Rai 1 TV network: the theme of the show was peace in the Middle East and Nabil duetted again with Noa in the moving setting of Santa Chiara's monastery in Naples.

For this occasion Radiodervish performed a national preview of the new single Centro del Mundo, which gave name to the following album by the band, released the next summer.

Later that year in May, Radiodervish performed in the traditional Labour Day concert held in Brussels, which was dedicated to peace development in the Middle East.

Later that same month, Nabil was again involved in another event by the same subject, Time for peace, held at the Colosseum in Rome and broadcast live worldwide.

Here Nabil sang Centro del Mundo with Noa, with whom he also joined the peace walk Perugia-Assisi.

Radiodervish's album Centro del Mundo was released in June 2002, under the newborn label Cosmasola, and distributed by Il Manifesto CD.

This new work was inspired by the changeableness and uprooting which influence the soul of human beings, and the music and tracks contained in the album tell the stories and feelings of people living between two cultures.

Radiodervish were on tour all over Italy from August till the end of the year.

In line with their personal social commitment, during this period they engaged in the Giubileo degli Oppressi, a series of events and meetings organized both by clerics and lay people aimed to find practical solutions against wars and to integrate people generally living in the fringe of society bearing no guilt, such as the needy, refugees, humans struck by conflicts, unemployed, homeless people.