SIster Marie Keyrouz

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Sister Marie Keyrouz, born in Deir-El-Ahmar, close to the Roman city of Baalbeck (Lebanon), is a member of the Congrégation des Surs Basiliennes Chouérites and founder-president of the National Institute of Sacred Music in Paris.

She pursued several lines of research simultaneously and has received a Doctorate in Religious Musicology and Anthropology from Sorbonne University, Paris (1991), an M.Phil. in Religious Sciences from Saint-Joseph's University, Beirut, and one in Western (Oratorio) and Oriental Classical Music (Vocal) from the University of the Holy Spirit, Kaslik, to the point where she began to be called "the Scholarly Singing Sister".

A born musician and a nun by conviction, she tries to keep a balance between the demands of art and those of her beliefs.

A Maronite from her family's side and a Melkite through her religious congregation, she is the embodiment of the venerable artistic traditions of the Oriental Church. Belonging to the Mediterranean, a Lebanese with a universal culture to which she is extremely attached, she has not only mastered the art or singing in the Near-Eastern style, but also the old and classical Western styles.

	A nun, a qualified musicologist, anthropologist and singer, she is able to harmonize art with science, and creativity with authenticity with an amazing skill. Her second vocation has opened to her the doors of repertoires from the shadows of the past, from the very first centuries of Christianity and the brotherhood between all Maronite, Syrian Catholic, Orthodox Syrian, Byzantine and Melkite songs; she has become the very "Fervor of Traditional Christian Song". In a word, she offers her voice, her entire self and her art in the service of the Divine Word and her mission as a nun. She often says, "When you sing, you pray twice", repeating what Saint Basil had said, in her own words. At the crossroads of religions, her records have met with international success and have brought her several invitations to sing from all over the world, turning her into the Messenger of Peace, the Light of Holy Music, and the Mysterious Voice of the East. Since then, she has been appearing regularly in concerts along with her ensemble - the Ensemble for Peace, a name that clearly illustrates her desire for tolerance, universality and ecumenism. Perhaps the reason that Sister Marie Keyrouz has, today, become the Grande Dame of Christian singing, the Golden Voice of the East, the Voice of Ecstasy, the Mystical Vibration or the Gift of the Influence, is that, in her view, singing offers the only opportunity to express a truth that would otherwise be left unheard.


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