Egyptian musicians are angry after being excluded from the Grand Egyptian Museum's opening ceremony

Several Egyptian musicians are upset after most of them were excluded from the official opening ceremony of the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) by the organising committee.

Some of these musicians say they were surprised to learn earlier this month that they would be kept out of the ceremony in favour of foreign musicians.

"This is a sorry thing in fact, given the wonderful record and professionalism of local musicians," Ahmed Mounib, a well-known local violinist, told The New Arab.

"The organising committee of the ceremony thinks it will give the event an international aura by shutting locals out and replacing them with foreigners," he added.

Billed as Egypt's largest cultural event in years, the opening ceremony of the GEM will be held on 1 November, a long-awaited event that was delayed several times in recent months due to a series of domestic reasons and regional unrest, including Israel's genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.

The ceremony will mark the full inauguration of the museum. A private event is scheduled for November 1, which will be attended by world leaders, dignitaries, and cultural figures, with a live global broadcast planned.

The museum will then be opened for visitors on 4 November, after a temporary closure from 15 October to 3 November for final preparations, including the Tutankhamen galleries and Khufu Solar Boat exhibit.

Major accomplishment...

The construction of the GEM began in 2005 and was completed by 2023 at a $1 billion cost.

Partial openings started in October 2024, with galleries capping daily visitors at 4,000. Earlier dates for the opening of the museum, like 3 July 2025, were postponed due to "regional events".

The GEM will be one of the most significant archaeological museums in the world, covering approximately 490,000 square meters in total, with 90,000 square meters dedicated to exhibition space.

The museum houses over 100,000 artefacts, including the complete Tutankhamen collection and the Khufu Solar Boat.

It is larger than the Louvre Museum in Paris, often considered the largest museum globally, with a total of 360,000 square meters of space, including roughly 72,735 square meters of exhibition space.

The GEM stands out, specialists said, because it is dedicated solely to a single civilisation (Ancient Egypt), making it unparalleled in its specialised scope and collection density.

"This museum will increase Egypt's attraction on the global tourism map," Noura Aly, the head of the Committee on Tourism in the Egyptian parliament, told TNA.

"It is a very important project for the tourism sector, potentially turning into a strong magnet for tourists from around the world," she added.

The Egyptian presidency has been contacting a vast number of world leaders to attend the museum's opening, with the confirmed list of participants so far including the German president.

Nonetheless, the exclusion of local musicians from the opening ceremony is leaving a bitter taste in their mouths.

... But a series of blunders

The exclusion of some local musicians from the museum's opening is the latest in a series of controversies surrounding the project since its inception in 2002, reflecting a mix of political, financial, design, and social issues.

While the museum represents a monumental effort to showcase a vast number of ancient Egyptian artefacts, critics argue that these controversies have overshadowed the project's cultural ambitions.

The project, initially slated for opening in 2010, has faced over 15 years of postponements due to the 2011 Arab Spring uprising, a 2013 military coup, the COVID-19 pandemic, Egypt's 2022–2024 currency crisis (which devalued the pound by 75%), and recent regional conflicts like the Israel-Iran war and Israel's wars on Gaza.

The latest delay shifted the complete inauguration from July this year to November, with a temporary closure from 15 October to 3 November for preparations.

These setbacks have frustrated stakeholders and fuelled accusations of poor planning, with some viewing the museum as a victim of Egypt's turbulent politics.

Originally budgeted at around $550 million, the total cost has ballooned to over $1 billion, with funding partly coming from international loans to offset tourism revenue losses.

Critics, including local economists, have questioned the value amid Egypt's economic woes, labelling it a "white elephant" project that diverts funds from pressing needs like healthcare or education.

Reliance on military oversight for funding and execution has also sparked debates about transparency in government spending.

The exclusion of local musicians from the opening ceremony appears to add to these controversies and leaves a negative impression among them.

Mounib, the violinist, participated in the Royal Mummies Parade, which took place across the streets of Cairo in April 2021.

The event was widely celebrated as a spectacular cultural and national occasion, involving the transfer of 22 royal mummies—notably 18 kings and four queens, including iconic figures like Ramses II and Hatshepsut —from the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square to their new home at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation in southern Cairo.

The event was a meticulously orchestrated spectacle that captivated global audiences and resonated deeply with Egyptians.

He and other local musicians received accolades for their performance during the event, which was followed by hundreds of millions of people around the world.

"This was Egypt's most important artistic and cultural event to date," Mounib said.

"After the parade, all the people who praised our performance said they would wait on tenterhooks to see us perform during the opening of the GEM," he said.

"There is wide condemnation for this decision," Mounib added. "We have great musicians in this country, but there appears to be a decision to overlook them for international propaganda's sake."

So far, the Egyptian government has not issued any statements regarding barring local musicians from participating in the museum's opening ceremony or replacing them with foreign musicians.

The official spokesperson for the Ministry of Antiquities and Tourism did not return calls by TNA for comment.

Nevertheless, according to local media, the official opening ceremony of the GEM will feature Egyptian and foreign musicians, all led by an Egyptian maestro.

A Ministry of Culture official said that the presence of foreign musicians aims to deliver a message of unity to all those who will watch the ceremony live from all parts of the world.

"They will be here to show that human civilisation belongs to us all, regardless of our race, language or colour, and that it deserves to be celebrated by everyone," the official, who requested anonymity, told TNA.

A local TV host backed the same view by defending the presence of foreign musicians in the museum's opening orchestra, which will be titled 'Message of Peace'.

The ceremony, he said, would bring musicians from 70 states together, along with 121 from Egypt.

"This will be an international event," Amr Adeeb, who hosts a talk show on the Saudi television channel, MBC Masr, said. "People from all countries have to participate in it."

Egypt pins a lot of hope on the opening of the GEM to bring it back to the international limelight and to the centre of archaeological tourism's gravity, since the Arab country boasts one of the world's oldest civilisations and a long list of sites that have captivated history lovers over the years. 

But many are wondering, at what cost?