Singapore Arts Festival 2011: Radio Muezzin June 4, 2011

Radio Muezzin is a performance which might become the swan song for muezzins, the servants of the mosque. A muezzin is an official chosen for his good character, who proclaims the Islamic call to prayer, both five times a day for daily prayer as well as on Friday for public worship. Five times a day in Cairo, muezzins also become the voice of the city.

Increasingly however, the human muezzin has been displaced by audio recordings, and now, the Minister for Religious Affairs is currently introducing the centralised muezzin. Via one radio station, only one proclaimer at a time is to go on air for simultaneous transmission from all state-owned mosques. This will silence thousands of Egyptian muezzins, and put an end to the hitherto cultural cacophony.

After three months of research, rehearsals and a try-out in Cairo, Radio Muezzin had its uproariously successful world premiere in Berlin in March 2009, where loud calls to prayer are prohibited.

Tickets on sale at SISTIC.

Official Website: http://www.singaporeartsfest.com