[17] In the summer of 1957, Fairuz held her first live performance at the Baalbeck International Festival where she was awarded with the honor of "Cavalier", the highest medal for artistic achievement by Lebanese president Camille Chamoun.

Fairuz has received honors and distinctions in multiple countries, including Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Tunisia, the United States, Egypt, and France.

Living in a single room of a typical Lebanese stone house facing Beirut's Greek Orthodox Patriarchate school, they shared a kitchen with the neighbors.

This brought her to the attention of Mohammed Flayfel, a well-known musician and a teacher at the Lebanese Conservatory, who happened to attend one of the school's shows in February 1950.

[39] Fairuz rose to fame during the golden era of Arabic music and is one of the last figures and contributors of that time alive today.

[40][43][44] Fairuz's first large-scale concert was in 1957, as part of the Baalbeck International Festival which took place under the patronage of Lebanese President Camille Chamoun.

Fairuz was paid one Lebanese pound for that show, but she and the Rahbani brothers would become staples of the festival and featured most years until the civil war in Lebanon.

[9] Fairuz amassed more fame as she and other contemporaneous Arab artists were vocal about the Palestinian cause in their conflict with Israel and produced a number of militaristic and patriotically somber songs for them.

His uncle Mansour Rahbani re-wrote new lyrics for it to be called "Saalouni n'Nass" ("The People Asked Me") which talked about Fairuz being on stage for the first time without Assi.

[9][48] Three months after suffering the hemorrhage, Assi attended the premiere performance of that musical, Al Mahatta, in Piccadilly Theatre on Hamra Street.

She and the Rahbani brothers would frequently express their dissent for the war in their music, and their refusal to take sides and non-partisan stances helped them appeal to all of Lebanon, which then allowed Fairuz to become a voice of reason and unification for the Lebanese people.

[9] Ziad Rahbani was a constant driving force in the evolution of Fairuz's music style, as he worked to break away from what his parents had previously established.

[50] Fairuz made a second and final European Television appearance on French TV on October 13, 1988, in a show called Du côté de chez Fred.

Her first CD, The Very Best of Fairuz, was published in 1987 and contained the emblematic song "Aatini al Nay wa ghanni" (Give me the flute and sing),[51] based on a poem in "The Procession"[52] by Khalil Gibran.

Commenting on the event, the BBC wrote: "Every day the sun rises over Syria you hear one voice across the country—Fairuz, the legendary Lebanese singer and greatest living Arab diva".

[64] The 2008 concert in Damascus angered some of her fans and several Lebanese politicians who described Syria as "enemy territory in the grip of a brutal secret police force".

Even some Syrian opposition activists called on her to boycott the event as just three years prior Syria had been accused of carrying out a series of assassinations on the Lebanese.

As well as a renewed Syrian government crackdown on dissent that same day during which several people were arrested, including opposition figure Riad Seif and twelve other activists of the anti-government Damascus Declaration.

[9][66] A poll conducted a week before the concert by NOW Lebanon, a Lebanese web portal sympathetic to the anti-Syria March 14 Alliance, showed that 67% of the respondents were opposed to Fairuz's appearance in Damascus, with one of the website's editorials saying that "this was not the moment for a musical love-in".

[57][58][67] In 1969, Fairuz's songs were banned from radio stations in Lebanon for six months because she refused to sing at a private concert in honour of Algerian president Houari Boumedienne.

Hundreds gathered in front of the National Museum of Beirut, led by a number of Arab artists, including Egyptian actress Ilham Chahine who flew to Lebanon in order to join the sit-in.

Ziad replied: "Fairuz is very fond of Sayyed Hassan [Nasrallah], although she will be displeased with me, as she was after my last television interview when I revealed some personal information and she quickly interrupted me".

[73] Ziad, who claims to speak on his mother's behalf "because she prefers to remain silent", responded to his critics by saying: "Apparently it isn’t allowed in the age of strife for the princess of classy Arab art to voice love for the master of resistance".

[73] Nasrallah, commenting on the issue during a speech, stated: "An educated highly respected thinker and artist, who may be espoused different ideologies, might disagree with you on political matters, but personally have [a] fondness for you, because of your character, conduct, sacrifices and so on.

She played the lead roles alongside singers/actors Nasri Shamseddine, Wadih El Safi, Antoine Kerbaje, Elie Shouayri (Chouayri), Hoda (Fairuz's younger sister), William Haswani, Raja Badr, Siham Chammas (Shammas), Georgette Sayegh, and many others.

[77][5] The Rahbani plays expressed patriotism, unrequited love and nostalgia for village life, comedy, drama, philosophy, and contemporary politics.

"[79] Fairuz is held in high regard in Lebanese culture because, in a region divided by many conflicts and opinions, she acts as a symbol of unity.

[81] In 1999, The New York Times described her as "a living icon without equal" and stated that her emergence as a singer paralleled Lebanon's transformation from a backwater to the vibrant financial and cultural heart of the Arab world.

[84] Fairuz has received multiple awards and tokens of recognition throughout her career, including the Key to the Holy City (by the Jerusalem Cultural Committee in 1973), the Jordanian Medal of Honor (by King Hussein in 1975), the Jerusalem Award (by the Palestinian Authority) and the Highest Artistic Distinction (by Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 1998), as well as being nominated Knight of the National Order of the Cedar, Commander of Arts and Letters (by French president François Mitterrand in 1988) and Knight of the Legion of Honor (by French president Jacques Chirac in 1998).

A Fairuz album composed by Egyptian musician Riad Al Sunbati (who has worked with Umm Kulthum) was produced in 1980 but is unlikely to be released.