Mariam C. Said

Mariam C. Said (Arabic: مريم سعيد‎‎) is a major force behind the newly established Barenboim-Said Academy (BSA) and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra (WEDO) that was co-founded in 1999 by her late husband Edward W. Said and Daniel Barenboim. Mrs. Said also serves as the Vice President of the Barenboim-Said Foundation USA.

Mariam C. Said was born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon. Mariam Said holds an undergraduate degree from the American University of Beirut (AUB) in Lebanon and two graduate degrees from Columbia University. For more than 20 years, she worked in the financial services industry in New York City.

In 2009, Mrs. Said published the critically acclaimed memoir, A World I Loved: The Story of an Arab Woman, by her mother Wadad Makdisi Cortas. Mrs. Said collaborated with Vanessa Redgrave to conceive and create a theatre production based on the memoir. The success of its premier at the Brighton Festival in 2012 led to a performance at the Miller Theatre in New York. In July 2015, the production will be seen at the Spoleto Festival in Italy.

Mrs. Said serves on the board of The Barenboim-Said Music Centre Ramallah, Palestine. Currently she is on the advisory board of The Freedom Theatre in Jenin, Palestine, and ArteEast, a New York-based international non-profit organization that supports and promotes artists from the Middle East and its Diasporas. In addition, Mrs. Said is a founding member of the board of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and served on the Board of Directors of the Alumni Association of North America of the American University of Beirut. She is also a member of the Board of Trustees of Americans for Children of the Middle East, that works with its partner organization United Lebanon Youth Project (ULYP) on the BRIDGE program in its efforts to provide scholarships and university placements to bright young Palestinians from the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

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