Hisham Abbas to inaugurate Miss Lebanon 2003

Published May 20th, 2003 - 03:00 GMT

Egyptian singer Hisham Abbas has recently arrived in Lebanon with his wife after he received a special invitation by the Lebanese Broadcasting Company (LBC) to be the official singer for the finale of the Miss Lebanon 2003 beauty pageant. Hisham will be on of the main surprises of the big event that has gained so much attention in the past couple of months.

According to the London based Elaph, Hisham will also take advantage of his stay in Lebanon to place the final touches on four songs from his upcoming release that will be composed by Jan Mary Riashi. Abbas was very impressed with his previous hit "Faino" (Where Is He?), which was also composed by a Lebanese composer and so decided go through the experience once more.

LBC had decided that since the US-led war on Iraq is basically over it will resume its previously scheduled program for the Miss Lebanon pageant. The organizers had called all remaining contests that were sent home to return as soon as possible to the Grand Hill Hotel in Beirut, where they remained once more at the hotel until the final moment away from their homes and all outside contacts. The final event will be a competition between six remaining finalist who survived viewer's eliminations.

The organizers of the pageant had decided to attribute a new trend in choosing the new Miss Lebanon 2003 by featuring the contestants in different occasions a number of times live on TV before the final moment is set. The event will be divided into several events in which the contestants will be filmed live in order for the viewers to make their decision on who should remain to take part in the final event of replacing the current Miss Lebanon 2002, Christina Sowaya.

The first appearance of the contestants was on in February, which witnessed the presence of a large number of artists from the Arab world and abroad, and was filmed live in order to introduce the contestants to home viewers.

The second live filming of the contestants was during training sessions for dancing, walking and behaving with one another. Their stay was filmed randomly and aired live for approximately 40 minutes daily as a reportage.

A representative from LBC was present with the contestants from day one until the final moment making interviews and filming different instances of the girls. Special technical equipment was brought in from abroad for the occasion to help ease the mission of walking through the event step by step.

For weeks, casting of votes was made by viewers to eliminate one out of three contestants every Friday. A total of six remaining contestants will take part in the final event in which one will be chosen Miss Lebanon 2003 by a panel of judges. -Albawaba.com