Musician Al-Fateh Hussein writes: My Memories in Germany – Professor Al-Mahi Ismail – January 1995

Our professor and founder of the Higher Institute of Music and Theater, currently the Faculty of Music and Drama and its first dean since 1969, Professor Al-Mahi Ismail passed away from our world today, 17/07/2024, in Germany. Professor Al-Mahi Ismail, who immigrated to Germany in the early seventies of the last century, where he became responsible for the Arabic section and the musical culture in North and East Africa’s countries at Radio Deutsche Welle – Köln. Germany honored him with a medal of merit. Despite his long migration, he did not stop visiting Sudan.

After I heard the painful news of his death, my memory took me back to January 1995. At that time, I was a student at the Russian Academy of Music. I traveled to Germany at the invitation of the late artist Abdulaziz Al-Mubarak to accompany his band for a concert at the Research Center in Berlin. The band gathered in Frankfurt and Abdulaziz Al-Mubarak arrived from Saudi Arabia, where he worked there. My brothers and fellow musicians who arrived from Sudan where: Mirghani Al-Zein (violin) and all of the deceased, may God have mercy on them, Professor Muhammadiya (violin), Professor Nasser Jad Karim (bass guitar), Professor Hamid Othman (tenor sax) and all of them came from England, Mr. Ahmed Abdel Rahman (organ), Mr. Abdel Hafeez Abdel Qadir Karar (percussion), Mr. Al-Baqir Saaran (conga), and the saxophone player, the late Mr. Hamouda Suleiman who came from Canada, (may God have mercy on him). We gave a concert at the Research Center in Berlin and another concert for the Sudanese community in Frankfurt. The concerts ended and all the band members returned to their countries from which they had come. I failed to return to Moscow, especially since I was on vacation for the first semester at the academy. Throughout those remaining days, I spent with my friend Ahmed Khader in Frankfurt, and I was in constant contact with the late Professor Al-Mahi Ismail, who invited me to visit him in the city of Cologne and go with him to the Radio Station to record a dialogue session on singing and music in Sudan, which also going there was one of the most important necessities for during that period I was preparing and collecting information to obtain a doctorate degree. For me the professor was one of the important oral references because he was contemporary with those previous generations of musicians and artists.
I packed my bag and traveled from Frankfurt to Cologne by train, and he met me at the train station and we headed to his house. In the evening, I was chatting with him and he was telling me precise details about the state of singing and music during the period he spent in Sudan, especially the period of the fifties. It was a collection of very valuable information helped me a lot with my doctoral thesis. He used to tell me in a calm voice that was attractive to listen to. Even his laughter when he remembered a situation was all sincerity. He was a calm man who thought about what he said before he said it, and his words come to you like a wise man. In the morning, I went with him to Radio Cologne and noticed the Germans’ respect for him and his strong personality. We stayed at the Radio until the evening, where I recorded a dialogue with him about music and singing in Sudan in Arabic, and it was also broadcast in German, which he translated. One day, he asked me to go to a piano concert at the house of the musician known as Beethoven in Bonn. It was an irreplaceable opportunity for me, which was to visit Beethoven’s house, that great musician, and look at his belongings and attend a concert. After the death of the musician Beethoven, his house became a destination for tourists from all over the world, and concerts were held there.
I spent an entire week with the deceased, which was full of information, memories and a valuable friend. He took me to the train station from where I returned to Frankfurt. His image never left my mind to this day. The last time I met him was in 2010, when he came to Sudan on a visit. At that time, I was in the process of establishing Al-Fateh Hussein for Music Training Center. I went to his house and brought him to the center’s headquarters in Bahri. The late Professor Saleh Arki was with us. The late spoke to me a lot about establishing the center as an important and successful step. He advised me not to despair and go ahead with the establishment, and his words had a strong impact on me continuing with the project until it achieved its remarkable success. May God have mercy on him, and we ask God to forgive him and save him from Hell and make his grave a garden of Paradise.