Nancy Mounir

Nancy Mounir is an Egyptian composer, arranger, and multi-instrumentalist, born in Alexandria and based in Cairo, and a key figure in Egypt’s alternative music scene. She plays violin, piano, bass, theremin, and the kawala flute, working across both Western harmony and the microtonal foundations of Arabic maqam. Her 2022 debut album Nozhet El Nofous grew out of years of research into early twentieth-century Egyptian recordings, weaving her own compositions around archival voices of singers like Mounira El-Mahdeya. The result revives a freer, microtonal era of Egyptian music through a contemporary lens.