Hiba Tawaji

Hiba Michel Tawaji (; born December 10, 1987) is a Lebanese soprano coloratura singer , actress, and director. She played the main female role in some of the most well-known Rahbani musicals. She also participated in the of France's version of "The Voice", in which she was coached by Mika. She sings in Arabic, English and French. After "The Voice", she signed up with Mercury Records in 2015. On 30 May 2016, it was announced that Tawaji will join the cast of "Notre-Dame de Paris" as Esmeralda in the revival of the musical. She also has 4 Arabic musicals and 4 studio albums all produced by Oussama Rahbani.
In 19/9/2020 she married the French/Lebanese musician Ibrahim Maalouf.
Early life and education.
Born in Achrafieh, Beirut to Lebanese Orthodox parents, she grew up in Elissar, in the Matn District. She learned music at a young age, but she avoided singing in front of her parents at home. From 1990 and until 2005, Tawaji studied at the Athenee de Beyrouth School and received her BA in French literature.
From 2002 until 2007, she took singing lessons and solfeggio at Ecole des Arts Ghassan Yammine. She then went to Saint Joseph University of Beirut, IESAV, and majored in audio-visual and cinematographic studies, earning her B.A. in 2010.
Since 2007, she has been developing vocal techniques and interpretation with Lebanese producer and composer Oussama Rahbani. As well as taking vocal lessons with Lebanese singer and vocal coach Wadih Abi Raad, she has also taken private opera lessons with Galina Khaldeeva.
Between May and July 2010, she took vocal lessons with Emmy Award winner Gwen Conley in New York. In that same period, she followed a three-month intensive acting workshop at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York.
"The Voice".
In 2015, Tawaji took part in the fourth season of "", France's version of "The Voice". In the blind auditions, she auditioned with "Les Moulins de mon cœur" by Michel Legrand with all four judges, Mika, Florent Pagny, Jenifer and Zazie turning their chairs. Tawaji opted to be in Team Mika. The blind audition was broadcast on day 3 of the auditions on 24 January 2015.
On 7 March 2015, in the Battles Round, Mika put her against Nög, another contestant in his team, both co-singing in "Mon amie la rose" from Françoise Hardy. Mika chose to keep Tawaji to the next round, with Nög being stolen by coach Zazie.
On 28 March, during the "L'Épreuve ultime" round, she interpreted "Fighter", a song by Christina Aguilera. She ended up staying in the Top 3 of Team Mika alongside Sharon Laloum and Yann'Sine Jebli, with David Thibault being stolen by Mika from Team Florent Pagny as a fourth new member of Team Mika.
In the live rounds, she sang "Everytime" from Britney Spears and was saved by public vote as top pick from Team Mika. In the second live round, she sang "Amoureuse" from Véronique Sanson again ending as public favourite from Team Mika with the biggest number of votes. Mika also opted to keep David Thibaut as Top 2 in his team.
In the semi-finals held on April 18, she confronted David Thibault in a bid to represent Team Mika in the final. She sang "Pas là" from Vianney, but lost to Thibault in the public vote, with the latter going to the 25 April 2015 final. Tawaji ended up finishing joint 5th to 8th place for the season.
Filmography.
TV series.
_HAWAS 2020, starring Abed Fahed & Hiba Tawaji, directed By Mohamad Lotfy, written by Nadia Ahmar. 
_Elena Of Avalor, arabic disney animated series 2017, Hiba Tawaji played a singing role of princess Elena. 
Concerts with the NSOU.
Performing with the NSOU (National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine), conducted by Maestro Volodimir Sirenko. Produced & Orchestrated by Ghadi & Oussama Rahbani.
Other Rahbani concerts
Hiba Tawaji 30.
Hiba Tawaji 30 is a Lebanese album by Hiba Tawaji Produced by Oussama Rahbani (2017) it consists of 30 songs on two CDs. The first CD contains 15 completely new songs, most of them written by Ghadi Rahbani with five songs written by Oussama Rahbani.
While CD 2 contains 15 songs, most of them were already released as singles by Hiba as "metl l reeh", "yemken habaytak", and "metl l chajar" and the others were either covers from famous Arabic stars, including "enta omri" by Um Kalthum and "ahou dalli sar" by Said Darwich or songs taken from rahbani musicals, such as "eza feek tghayer aklal" from Molok el Tawaef and "matrah ma bi waddi l sawt" from Awdat el Phiniq.
One can recognize the additional electronics in the songs "Yala Nerkos" and "Hkini" by Fred Savio and "enta habibi" and "tir w alli" by Roger abi Akl in addition to the orchestral songs either by the National Ukrainian Orchestra conducted Byby Vladimir Sirenko or by the Lebanese Orchestra conducted by Michel Khairallah.
Jose Fernendez's guitar was present in some songs, such as "enta l falayt" and "lashou ta ehtam", while Wadih Abi Raad participated by singing with Hiba in the duet "eza kel adyan l aalam".
The last song in the album was produced by Disney. It is "Haza Zamani" from the series "Elana of Avalor". A music video for this song was released few weeks later.
The album came after a music video for the song "bghanilak ya watani" showing the old Lebanon and how it is today and how we dream to be by the camera of director Hiba Tawaji with the help of Emile Adaimy.
The album also contained a photoshoot session in Paris and another romantic music video "Wahdi lahaly" directed by Mokhtar Beyrooth.
The album was released on 30 March 2017 in Virgin Mega Stores, Lebanon and then to the rest of the Arabic countries (being the most sold music CD for a full month).
It was named "30" for reasons other than holding 30 songs. One of them is that Oussama wanted his day to have 30 hours, so he could get a break after a full day.
The songs are the album are
TEN & other live shows.
Hiba & Oussama have brought a new kind of theatre arts to the Arabic world which is the live show that makes music, dancing, acting & singing to be mixed in 1 show thus creating a beautiful image to every song 
After their first show "ya habibi" Hiba and Oussama made many shows in lebanon and Arabic world like the great show at Byblos Festivals 2015 that was published as dvd later in 2016 ... and the show at Zahle festivals and the International show done in Saudi (for the first time) for the Arabic women and the synphonic show at Egypt 2018
But the greatest one was TEN that concludes ten years of work from Hiba and Oussama
It was at the fifth of august 2017 (the 10th year for Hiba as a singer) at the Cedars festivals
It was done with the lebanese orchestra conducted by Oussama Rahbani and a team of dancers choreographed by Pascale Sayegh Zgheib
All the audience hold candles as one of the most beautiful images from that night in remembering of an old situation happened at the same place when Fayrouz used to make a concert with the rahbani brothers and the audience was holding candles for unclear reasons related to Electricity
Then, in 2019, Hiba performed a great show at Aqaba, Jordan produced by Oussama Rahbani. 