Dubai: Tala Badri is still the only Emirati woman to have graduated with a degree in music. She developed a love of music at a young age and learned to play the piano at the age of four. By 13, she was playing the guitar and flute and just last year she took up the saxophone.
Tala enjoyed studying music at the Royal Holloway University in London, but there was a big problem when she graduated in 1993: she couldn't get a job.
Many schools at that time did not have music on the curriculum and the schools with established music departments had employed teachers that were comfortable in their jobs.
There were not as many arts and culture-related activities at that time, "there were a few random things that happened that a few people would go to, but there was not very much at all and that's changed phenomenally in the last 20 years," Tala told Gulf News.
"I think there's a big drive here to make it a quality place to live in, so and that's where things like arts and culture come in, so now you need a little bit of arts and culture to give it a bit of soul to help you stay here and want to be here. It's come organically I think with the growth of the city," she said.
After returning to London and completing a Business Management degree, Tala worked in the corporate world and found a job just three days after graduating with her second degree.
Still, her hankering for music remained, and after her daughter was born she found the time to start teaching. Soon after she had the opportunity to set up some music studios at what is now Ductac in Mall of the Emirates.
Expansion
"I started with five studios at the mall with five members of staff and about 80 students and that was five years ago. And today we've got 18 studios, 25 members of staff and 1,300 students. It grew very quickly," she said.
In 2005, Tala founded the Centre for Musical Arts (CMA) which has also expanded to a second location in the Gold and Diamond Park. Now, however, the community facility is faced with the same problem they had a couple of years ago — there is increasing demand but their space is limited.
"We need more space and we're looking to expand… but we can't afford to fit it out…. and we have to try and find some money from somewhere.
"So we need somebody who believes in music and arts and the development of culture here to support that," she said.
Tala was honoured recently at the Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Patrons of the Arts Awards, for her contributions to the arts.
Most of the Emirati CMA students are under 12, Tala said, and there is only one Emirati female student who is learning to play the violin. While it's not her only goal, she said that it would be "wonderful" if one of her Emirati students made a career out of music.
Focusing on quality and affordability
The Centre for Musical Arts (CMA), a non-profit organisation, was founded in 2005 by Tala Badri to provide quality and affordable musical instruction to all who seek it, and to share the musicianship of the faculty and students with the community, CMA offers a variety of classical music programmes, with an increasing emphasis on jazz and Arabic classical music.
CMA also provides a peripatetic music service to schools and a Saturday Sessions programme for groups of six- to 18-year-olds. CMA also founded the Dubai Sinfonia, a community based orchestra of local professionals, teachers and talented amateurs, in 2009.
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