Yasmina Sabbah: conducting from the sky, salvaging classical music

It’s an image she’ll always have engraved in her mind, going up in the air while the fountain is going up with her in the midst of a breathtaking show. Yasmina Sabbah conducted the orchestra while flying in the air on New Year’s Eve 2026 at the Burj Khalifa, Dubai. “I cannot describe this feeling. It’s a beautiful adrenaline rush. To be able to see this perspective was truly amazing”.

One of the few female conductors in the MENA region, Yasmina was not daunted by the sky-high performance. “There’s no room for self-doubt when walking on stage”, she confesses. She needs to spread trust and confidence to the entire ensemble while staying focused. Her spacious living room, with floor to ceiling windows overlooking Achrafieh, was the setting for our interview. Thibault Le Beau, her royal Himalayan cat, sat comfortably on the couch next to me. Right after, she and her violin-playing husband Mario Rahi had a recording session for her first album with the USJ choir.

Bitten by the music bug

Every summer, young Yasmina used to orchestrate the Summer Family Musical with her brother and cousins. “Poor things it was imposed on them”, she says amused. She would direct it, choreograph it, prepare posters, invite the family. Directing seemed so natural to her. She was headed to a classical vocal career when she randomly got the chance to conduct a children’s choir, and it was instant. “I knew that this is what I wanted to do in life, with more professional ensembles”.

At twenty, she knew precisely what she wanted to do and studied conducting. She got her master’s from the University of Cambridge, UK, and when she came back ten years ago, she started her journey conducting the USJ choir and different other orchestras. “Music is not an 8 to 5 job. Whenever there’s a concert it follows you every day of your life, it lives with you”. When she’s conducting, she’s giving a lot of herself, her energy to the ensemble. This energy needs to be replenished, and this is why she tries to keep the balance.

Inevitable struggles

Her choice of career path is not short of its struggles. The challenges of being a female conductor and a leader come in the details not in the big appearances. Nowadays, it’s fashionable to have a female conductor. Since it’s a leadership job, a lot of times when she’s giving directives or leading, a defense mechanism gets activated in men and women. If a man was giving the exact same instructions, in a less kind way, it would be taken differently. “Ouf, awe!”, as in “capable!” If she were firm, she gets responses to the effect of “Are you PMSing or something?”, inappropriate remarks.

“As women we must prove ourselves a hundred times more than men to be able to be entrusted with something”, admits Yasmina. Being only thirty-seven doesn’t help either. With experience, she learnt to ignore this complication. Eventually, they get used to her because “in the end, music always speaks for itself”.

Other struggles she’s faced with are fundraising and funding for concerts, finding new venues to do the concerts, and some challenges particular to Lebanon like musicians and soloists being scarce in the country.

Harmonizing the future legacy

In Lebanon, there’s always been a classical music scene, although it is dying everywhere in the world. It is within their mission to keep the tradition of classical music alive by organizing concerts and investing in new composers, compositions, and arrangements. “It is our job to write the future legacy. This is why one of my projects with the choir is the symphonic fusion series, established three years ago”. They pick a theme every year, rock or electro music for instance, and rewrite it for a full symphonic orchestra, bringing classical music and new genres together.

Her latest project is commissioning a full work and investing in new composers who write in “Musique Savante” style, a complex harmonic language, exploring new tone colors. Investing in newly composed music is the road to the future.

A leader’s strategy

With seventy people in her choir, she’s attentive to the people around her, always aware of what’s happening, questioning and trying to improve constantly. “Leadership is something you need to have in you, to take initiative and responsibility. Lifting everyone up no matter what happens”, explains Yasmina.  She keeps an eye ten miles ahead of everyone, even if the process is grueling, trusting it to reach the vision.

They hold auditions every semester because she believes everyone deserves the chance to be part of a great musical experience. Sometimes people come up to her and say: “wow your choir is so professional but I only sing in the shower”. If she spots something in the voice, and the will to improve, she wants to invest in it. In the courses she teaches in university and the ensembles she works with, she’s more interested in consistency and effort than talent. “This for me is true talent”.

Furthermore, she’s ready and willing to give any woman who aspires to be a performer a platform in her productions to help her move forward. They deserve it and she knows first-hand that women have it harder than men.

At this point, she’s excited about continuing to orchestrate productions, each time with new music. “I’m not looking for fame, I’m not looking for anything grand, I just want to put on performances that give me and the people involved happiness. If it’s not bringing you joy, there’s just no point”.