Nagham Debal Gives the Qanun a Stage of Its Own

The qanun shares its name with the Arabic word for law, and for centuries it has behaved accordingly.

A flat, trapezoidal zither with strings stretched in groups of three, it is laid across a lap or table and plucked with picks worn on the index fingers, usually as part of an ensemble. Nagham Debal has spent much of her career asking what happens when it takes centre stage.

A Syrian musician raised in the UAE, Debal grew up surrounded by music and began composing young. Khaleej Times reported in 2022 that she wrote her first composition at 9. She later graduated with a bachelor's degree in architecture before choosing music as a profession.

TODA Dubai bills Debal as the UAE's first female qanun player. Her career has since taken the instrument onto television, festival stages and into a repertoire that reaches beyond Arabic classics.

“I grew up surrounded by music, so the qanun was part of my world from a very young age,” Debal tells SceneNowUAE.

“But there was a moment when I realized that I didn't simply want to play the instrument. I wanted to understand it, develop my own voice through it, and make people see it differently.”

That repertoire includes qanun covers of Shape of You and Hungarian Dance alongside original compositions including Steps in Louvre Abu Dhabi, AlShaheed and Ya Emmi.

“For me, it's less about whether a piece was originally written for the qanun and more about whether its emotion can be translated through it,” she says.

“I listen for the melody, the harmony, the rhythm and, most importantly, the feeling behind the piece.” Debal looks for what a melody can retain when transferred to the qanun, and what the instrument can add to it.

“I don't see tradition and innovation as opposites,” she says. “I believe you can respect the roots of an instrument while allowing it to evolve.”

Her architecture degree still feeds into the way she thinks about performing. Debal pays close attention to the spaces surrounding music and the visual experience of an audience.

“I think there is a lot of room to rethink the entire experience, not necessarily by changing the music itself, but by changing how people experience it,” she says. “I want traditional Arabic music to feel timeless, but never distant or inaccessible to a younger generation.”

Debal sees younger listeners encountering Arabic music alongside sounds and images from across the world. “I think younger audiences don't necessarily reject traditional music; they simply want to experience it in a language that feels relevant to them,” she says.

“They are curious, visual and exposed to music from all over the world.” Her Syrian roots gave her an early connection to Arabic music, and growing up in the UAE exposed her to an international music scene.

“I think that combination shaped me into an artist who is deeply connected to her roots but also open to the world,” Debal tells SceneNowUAE.

Her official biography lists appearances at the World Government Summit in Dubai in 2016 and the Global Infrastructure Congress in 2018. Debal says the performances she remembers most clearly are those where audiences begin listening to the qanun differently.

“The performances that stay with me are the ones where I felt that the audience was connecting with the qanun itself, even if they had never heard it played that way before,” she says. “Those moments made me realize that my role isn't only to perform music; it's also to create a new relationship between the audience and the instrument.”

Debal wants listeners encountering the qanun for the first time to leave interested enough to keep listening.

“Most importantly, I hope they leave with curiosity: wanting to hear more, discover more, and perhaps see Arabic music through a completely new perspective,” she says.