Story of A Sudanese Woman.. Umm Balaina Al-Sanussi
Sudan Events – Haffiya Elyas
Umm Balaina Al-Sanussi was a Sudanese singer who was considered one of the second generation of pioneering female singers in the history of the sudanese music
Those women played a major role in the development and refleclting the diversiy of the Sudanese musical heritage, bringing to the public the female voice, to mirror the multitude of cultural resources the country enjoys.
Umm Balaina was born in 1952 in the village of Umm Sarual, the outskirts of the city of Al-Nuhoud, in the then North Kordofan state,urrently in West Kordufan state. She grew up in the city of Al-Obeid, the present day capital of North Kordufan State.
Her father was Hajj Al-Senussi Hamdan and her mother Hajja Al-Niyah Tiya Jaber Jouda. She completed her primary education, but was rather interested to pursue a carrier of singing to which she devoted the rest of her life.
Umm Balaina’s described this stages of her saying: “I left the path of reading early and took up the path of singing. I inherited my beautiful voice from my mother, and am the eldest of seven sisters within my family.”
Her first steps in her carrier as a singer at very early age when she joined the Kordufan Arts Group, assisted in this by an outstanding musician hailing from Kordufan region, Jumaa Jaber. She appeared for the first time to the general public in a singing competition at the District Festival at the National Theater in 1961. She was part of chorus that won the main prize of the competition.
