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It could be a meeting on a winter's afternoon in a hotel bar or one that takes place in the privacy of a mutual friend's home. Somewhere out of the limelight. And if such a private meeting were between the French singer Barbara and Lebanese singer Fairouz – two personally reticent and extraordinary women – it would be one conducted with modesty and a mutual, respectful willingness to share intimate thoughts.Dorsaf Hamdani singing Barbara and Fairouz is not an invitation to witness a duel between two divas on the stage at Madison Square Garden. "I wanted them to talk to together, one to the other" she says. The result is of such lucidity that everything seems self-evident: the proximity of two anti-conformist universes, the dizzying freedom seeming to spring from their every song, the spiritual kinship of two artists who are, each in their own cultures, both enigmas.Anyway, for the Tunisian Dorsaf Hamdani, the French chanteuse Barbara really started out as a mystery. A dozen years ago, while Dorsaf was starting work on a project inspired by the three princesses of Arabic song – Oum Kalthoum, Fairouz and Asmahan – she admits to having failed with her first introduction to the tall brunette singer and songwriter. "I was living in Paris and saw how much love was directed at Barbara. Even my sister found her songs beautiful, but they didn't touch me at all. Still, I was intrigued. I bought her records. But I left them aside for y dozen or more years. Then came the moment it all suddenly clicked."Recognized as one of Tunisia's greatest voices, Dorsaf is no stranger to exploring in space and in time, whether that be the legacy of the greatest Arabic singers or – with the Persian singer Alireza Ghorbani, the creation of the cd Ivresses – the poetry of Omar Khayyam. "One day, we made the observation there are hardly any real projects of artistic cooperation between Tunisia and France." So why not explore this interpenetration of imaginary worlds around today's Mediterranean? Why not set up a natural meeting of Barbara and Fairouz, singers who were so adventurous and are still so loved? Because the aura of these two icons reaches beyond their own cultural origins: many French people know who is Fairouz and most Tunisians have heard Barbara's songs.