Fairuz

Nouhad Wadie Haddad joined the national radio station in Lebanon as a chorus member in the late 1940s while still a teenager. Her first major hit, "Itab", dropped in 1952 and made her an instant star across the Arab world. By the summer of 1957 she held her first live performance at the Baalbeck International Festival, where Lebanese president Camille Chamoun awarded her the "Cavalier", the highest medal for artistic achievement. Her fame radiated through the 1950s and 1960s - Damascus, Amman, Cairo, Rabat, Algiers, Tunis - then onto Albert Hall, Carnegie Hall, the Olympia in Paris, the Odeon of Herodes Atticus in Athens. She recorded nearly 1500 songs, released more than 80 albums, performed in 20 musicals, and became one of the highest-selling Middle Eastern artists of all time.