15 October 2019
Honoring Bahraini Talented Icons at GCC Ministers of Culture Meeting, Muscat
A number of GCC brilliant creative culture figures and talented innovators were honored during the 23rd meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council Ministers of Culture, held in Muscat, Sultanate of Oman. The GCC culture ministers’ meeting was chaired by the Omani Heritage and Culture Minister, HH Sayyid Haitham bin Tariq Al Said, in the presence of GCC ministers in charge of cultural affairs, and with the participation of GCC Secretary-General, Dr. Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani.
H.E Shaikha Mai bint Mohammed Al Khalifa, President of the Bahrain Authority for Culture & Antiquities (BACA), participated in this meeting and lauded the importance of this honor ceremony, praising the greatest creative achievements of GCC artists and their cultural outcomes. H.E congratulated all honored artists and symbols of brightest minds, with special salute to BACA’s advocated and nominated candidates, namely the renowned artist, Khalid Al-Shaikh and artist Khalid al Muharraqi for their outstanding achievements and talents.
Worth to mention that Khaled Al Shaikh is a celebrated Bahraini composer, singer and songwriter and has been awarded a series of accolades over his career. He is a graduate of the High Institute of Music in Cairo, the Cairo Conservatoire, and has been lauded for his work with schoolchildren in Bahrain. Khalid al Shaikh is one of most prolific and renowned musical figures of Bahrain who earned recognition in the Gulf and wider Arab world, highly regarded for his unique artistic sensibility which combined classical Arabic with traditional Gulf folk rhythms, firmly establishing his position as an innovative artist and enabled him to collaborate with all types of voices and create new kinds of music compositions over his forty year career. The artist has written and composed for many artists such as Ahmad Al Jumairi, Samira Said, Abdulmajeed Abdullah, Abdullah Ruwaished, Rached al Majid, Lotfi Bouchenaq and others.
As to Artist Khalid al Muharraqi, he went to the US to study Photography and Interior Design at the Art Institute of Houston in the early 90s, where he first became entranced with using computers to create his design concepts. In 2004 Khalid founded his company, Muharraqi Studios, in Bahrain to create 3D architectural visualization; character animation; VFX and advertising materials. Khalid has won many international prizes for his varied work, including several 3D World, CG Society and 3D Total awards. In 2010, Khalid presented at the influential Abu Dhabi Film Commission’s Circle Conference on the subject of stereography and 3D in film-making.
There no doubt that this honoring ceremony is line with the common vision between tourism and culture in the GCC countries, as well as strategic action plan of developing the joint work between the cultural and tourism sectors in the GCC countries adopted by the Supreme Council at its 29th session (Muscat, Dec. 2008) by their Majesties and Highnesses, the leaders of the GCC States, may God protect them. The strategy action plan’s objectives; enriching the GCC citizen's personality and building his capacities and awareness to cope with the human development, developing the infrastructures, given that culture is a crucial element of the nation's solidarity and civilization and developing cultural output to renew and unify efforts to consolidate the national GCC identity through culture and common human heritage.
