Ghalia Benali & Romina Lischka
Biography Ghalia Benali & Romina Lischka
Ghalia Benali
is a singer and artist of Tunisian origin, living in Belgium. Different cultures, East and West come together in her art work, as well as in her biography. Ghalia was born in Brussels; however, four years later, her parents decided to return home and she found herself in a small town of Zarzis in south of Tunisia, not far from the island of Djerba. There, between the eternal blue colors of the sky and sea and the same eternal yellow sands of Sahara, the time stood still, and the tourists and radio were the only links to the world outside. There, in the provincial wilderness, adoring to sing and dance, little Ghalia had no other music teachers than her mother. Recitations of the Quran, Indian and Egyptian films, voices of Arab music stars Om Kalthoum and Adib al-Dayikh were the first impressions forming the taste of talented girl… Much later it has developed into a special mix of anything in multicultural Belgium where Ghalia went to study art. There she began to sing and perform professionally by the late 1990s.
The idea to re-visit the songs of the Arab Diva with a small band, trying to get not exactly to the sound, but to the spirit of the great performer brought on a breakthrough project, the album "Ghalia Benali Sings Om Kalthoum" released in 2010. Numerous TV appearances in Egypt, Lebanon and other Arab countries have followed. Among her earlier CDs are the bright big label debut "Wild Harissa" (2001, Network), Indo-Arab fusion "Nada" (2002), mystical love story of East and West “Romeo & Leila" (2006) and Ghalia’s personal offering to the Indian sage Sri Aurobindo and the great Sufi woman saint Rabi'a al-Adawiyya, "Al Palna" (2008, with Bert Cornelis). In 2008 she won the World of Music Award for the best world music song, presented by an independent British organization “We Are Listening”.
In the second decade of XXI century Ghalia has found her spiritual home in Egypt, which rich musical culture inspired her for new projects: the series of ambient sounding and looking clips for YouTube and Soundcloud with her singing the poetry of contemporary Arab authors, mainly Egyptian. Two more big projects were unveiled this year: a special re-introduction of “Al Palna” for the Egyptian audience and an exquisite revision of traditional Arab takht ensemble changing strings for brass, presented at Makan in May.
Ghalia is also involved in cinema business, she was starring in Moufida Tlatli's movie "A Season of Men” (2000), "Swing" by Tony Gatliff (2002), Leyla Bouzid’s first long movie, “When I Open My Eyes”, coming out in September 2015, and collaborated with Egyptian director Mohamed Hisham for his short film “Jareedy” as an actress, a singer and a music composer.
Romina Lischka
studied viola da gamba with Paolo Pandolfo at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (Basel, Switzerland) and was awarded her soloist diploma “with distinction” in 2006. She continued her studies with Philippe Pierlot at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels where she received her Master's diploma "with distinction” in 2008.
Since graduation, Romina has worked as a free-lance gambist with ensembles such as Collegium Vocale (Philippe Herreweghe), Gli Angeli Genève and Il Gardelino. Her concert activities have brought her to prestigious concert halls and festivals throughout Europe, Russia, Asia, North and South America.
In 2012, Romina performed the premier of George Benjamin's opera Written on Skin at the festival in Aix-en-Provence and has travelled with this production to the Opéra Comique in Paris and the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. She has also toured with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra throughout Europa (Teatro Real Madrid, Barbican London, etc.) and with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra in China (Beijing Music Festival, etc.).
In the 2012-13 concert season, Romina was chosen as the early music "ECHO Rising Star" by the BOZAR (Brussels) and Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), which resulted in solo performances at various European concert venues.
Romina can be heard on numerous CDs on the labels Coro, Flora, Ricercar, Christophorus, Musica Ficta, Fuga Libera en Paraty. Her debut CD Pièces de viole de Sietur de Machy received the top 5 star rating by Diapason. The CD En Suite - Marin Marais, Sainte Colombe & Robert de Visée was awarded the Klara prize for “best classical CD of 2015.”
Alongside her activities as a gambist, Romina also studied North Indian classical singing (dhrupad) at the World Music department at the Rotterdam Conservatory (Bachelor, 2010) and in India (Delhi and Pune) with Ustad Fariduddin Dagar en Uday Bhawalkar.
Combining all her musical interests, Romina formed the Hathor Consort in 2012 to perform not only Renaissance and Baroque consort music, but also modern works and world music.
For the seaseon 2019-20 Romina is Portrayed Artist of Bozar. She has received the KLARA Award - Soloist of the Year 2018.
