Meet the first female head of the Saudi Music Authority

By : Taha Sakr

Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Farhan, the Minister of Culture, recently issued a decision appointing Saudi musician Jihad Al-Khalidi as CEO of the Music Commission in a first step to start the work of the Authority and its responsibilities towards developing the Saudi music sector in all its directions.

The Music Authority is one of eleven new organizations launched by the Saudi Ministry of Culture to serve and develop the sub-cultural sectors that were included in its vision and orientation document announced in March.

Saudi “women” contribute effectively to the cultural openness that Saudi Arabia is witnessing and offer role models, and the female faces emerge strongly with the policy of cultural, artistic and intellectual leadership led by His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, Crown Prince.

Who is Jihad Al-Khalidi, CEO of the Music Commission?

She is Jihad bint Abdel-Elah Hussein Al-Khaldi, who holds a Bachelor’s in Music Education (Solfege) ٬ and a Bachelor’s music playing “Violin” ٬ from the Higher Institute of Music “Conservatory” in Cairo, and a Bachelor’s in Accounting from Ain Shams University in Egypt and a master’s degree in Business Administration From Britain.

Jihad Al-Khalidi played in the Conservatory Orchestra for 8 years, and participated in playing many classical concerts in Cairo and many European countries, and she worked as a lecturer at the University of Dar Al-Hikma for music tasting.

She was the first Saudi musician to stick to the violin to play and train, after waiting years for the dream of playing inside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and teaching music lovers this art.

Jihad al-Khalidi said in one of her conversations that there was no such thing as a “forbidden time”, especially since she worked for “20” years in the medical field and worked as a financial manager in a hospital.

She explained: «Music in my life has never been a hobby, it is the science, effort, perseverance and passion of my life, and it is one of the most difficult tasks that need training, persistence and challenge, and I have never stopped playing and practicing music ever.

Jihad Al-Khaldi wishes to take into account the teaching of music in schools

Jihad Al-Khaldi hopes that music teaching in schools will be taken into consideration, as music has become a basic subject in all international schools, within the subjects of study such as mathematics and other sciences, explaining that teaching music in schools requires the establishment of specialized colleges of music education in universities, specializing in Graduation batches during 4 years, be able to teach music in schools, because it differs from teaching music to specialized talents, and requires specialized educational methods.