Business spotlight: in perfect harmony

■ MANAGEMENT MUSIC

IN PERFECT HARMONY Hören wir das Wort „Irak”, denken wir an Krieg und Zerstörung, aber sicherlich nicht an Musik. Umso überraschender ist ein Projekt, das unter der Leitung eines schottischen Dirigenten zum seelischen Wiederaufbau des Landes beiträgt. VICKI SUSSENS berichtet.

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hen bombs fell on the Baghdad Music and Ballet School during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, they destroyed the building and caused the teachers to leave the country.

But they did not destroy 11-year-old Zuhal Sultan’s dreams to perform internationally one day. In fact, music became even more important to Sultan and her friends — as an escape from the chaos and tragedy of war. With no school to go to and few private teachers, it was hard to develop their talents. It was dangerous to walk in public with an instrument case, seen by the militia as a symbol of Western culture. And even in their own homes, the musicians had to play quietly to stay safe.

The internet provided a solution, however. As part of the country’s reconstruction after the war, affordable Wi-Fi services were slowly introduced in every corner of Iraq. This brought the world closer to the players, who began to connect with each other and teach themselves through sites like YouTube.

By the age of 17, Sultan had developed a plan: to form a symphony orchestra with young people from all corachieve sth. [E(tSi:v] audience [(O:diEns] Baghdad [)bÄg(dÄd] ballet [(bÄleI] battlefront [(bÄt&lfrVnt] battle-scarred [(bÄt&l skA:d] bring an edge to sth. [)brIN En (edZ tu] (edge Cologne [kE(lEUn] comfortable [(kVmftEb&l] conductor [kEn(dVktE] debut [(deIbju:] Edinburgh [(edInbErE] funding [(fVndIN] instant [(InstEnt] instrument case [(InstrEmEnt )keIs] militia [mE(lISE] oud [u:d] overwhelmed [)EUvE(welmd] press release [(pres ri)li:s] reconstruction [)ri:kEn(strVkS&n] refined [ri(faInd] resourceful [ri(zO:sf&l] rewarding: be ~ [ri(wO:dIN] virtuoso [)v§:tSu(EUsEU]

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ners of the country. It would be a way for Iraqis from different ethnic and religious backgrounds to “celebrate their identity as Iraqi musicians together”, as she says.

The resourceful young woman approached international organizations for support, including Channel 4’s Battlefront project in Britain, Musicians for Harmony in New York and the British Council in Iraq. Sultan wanted her orchestra to have the best music teachers in the world, a good conductor and, of course, funding.

She put all this into a press release, which was sent out in Britain by Battlefront — and seen by Paul MacAlindin, a Scottish conductor living in Cologne who has often worked with young musicians.

“In the last 30 years, I have worked with diverse groups of people. With young people, it’s simply easier.

They are faster at learning than older people. And they give you instant feedback, which is very rewarding,” says MacAlindin, who immediately contacted Sultan by Skype. Sultan was impressed by his energy. “I felt that’s the one who’s going to lift this youth orchestra to a higher level,” she says.

And so, in 2009, the battle-scarred country saw the birth of the first National Youth Orchestra of Iraq (NYOI), with MacAlindin as its conductor and musical director. The NYOI had its European debut in 2011, when it played at the Beethovenfest in Bonn with the violin virtuoso Arabella Steinbacher. In August 2012, it made its UK debut, at the Southbank Centre in London, playing with cellist Julian Lloyd Webber and oud soloist Khyam Allami. It also played in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, at the invitation of the Scottish government.

“The orchestra was greeted with huge excitement in these countries,” says MacAlindin, who explains that this did not come from pity for the young Iraqis but because audiences were impressed with how much the orchestra had achieved. “The complexity of this group means it brings an edge to the performance that a more refined, more comfortable youth orchestra wouldn’t be able to communicate,” he says. Steinbacher told him that she was “overwhelmed” by how much the musicians wanted to connect with her.

MacAlindin believes music is less about being perfect than about expressing something. And the players, who have been through the hell of war, and bring their own Arab and Kurdish cultures to the music, have a lot to express. “It’s very important both to the players and4 1/2013

Tariq Hassoon

There are many parallels between the work of a conductor and that of a global manager forming a new team

Music to escape war: the National Youth Orchestra of Iraq

Mike Luongo

■ MANAGEMENT MUSIC

“When you enter another culture, you’ll make a lot of small mistakes and must learn from them as fast as you humanly can” me that the audiences do not leave our concerts saying, ‘Not bad for Iraqis’,” he says.

These days, Iraq brings up images of death, desert and destruction — not exactly what one associates with classical music. Yet it was the first country in the Middle East to form a national symphony orchestra — in 1948, when Sultan’s music school was also started.

Years of oppression under Saddam Hussein meant that many musicians fled. But the music tradition remains strong. The most common Western instruments in Iraq are the violin and clarinet, both used in traditional Iraqi music. “A beginner can get basic information off YouTube and teach themselves quite a lot about how to play these instruments,” says MacAlindin. “The youth orchestra of Iraq proves this.”

Its success has had a lot to do with the clever management of MacAlindin, whose experience in putting together a complex team under difficult conditions has led him to be invited to speak at business conferences. There are many parallels between his work and that of a global manager working under pressure to form a top international team in a country where people do not have training or experience.

“It’s taken for granted that orchestras are a force of harmony,” says MacAlindin. “But people forget that the creative process requires a lot of chaos — a lot of getting your hands dirty, trial and error. This is something 70 www.business-spotlight.de

A perfect team: the NYOI ready to appear on stage

that Beethoven would have understood.” He adds that succeeding was a matter of blind faith.

“There are often no packaged solutions to the problems that arise,” says MacAlindin. “A lot of people go on intercultural courses and read books. That’s OK, but you’ve actually got to make a lot of small mistakes and learn from them as fast as you humanly can.”

The Scot says his intercultural competence comes partly from being a foreigner living in Germany. However, he has never worked on a project quite as challenging as this one. For one thing, because of the dangers of travelling round the country, musicians were auditioned on YouTube and selected by a virtual team: Sultan in Iraq, MacAlindin in Cologne and Allegra Klein, head of Musicians for Harmony in New York.

“Working online in three different languages — Kurdish, Arabic and English — meant a lot of trust needed to be built,” MacAlindin says.

In the summer of 2009, MacAlindin and several music tutors flew to Iraq to train the orchestra. “I had a plan, but I had no idea if that plan could actually

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Tariq Hassoon

Lessons from a conductor

“Learn to laugh a lot at your mistakes and share that laughter with your colleagues”

Learning to play together: Paul MacAlindin giving a summer course

PAUL MACALINDIN often speaks at management conferences. Here, he passes on the lessons he has learned as the musical director of the National Youth Orchestra of Iraq: Don’t waste your time trying to be perfect. In Western society, music has reached a high level of polish and refinement, increasing pressure on young musicians to be perfect. Just as in business, this striving for perfection shuts down more opportunities than it opens.

■ Before you start learning about somebody else’s culture, you should know who you are. And you should also know how much of how you act, think and behave has to do with your own cultural beliefs.

■ Learn to laugh a lot at your mistakes, and share that laughter with your colleagues. It will help you to overcome problems and move on.

■ Business leaders are regularly told to innovate as a way out of crisis. But the number of people who actually do that ■

succeed in that place,” MacAlindin explains. “There were serious questions about who we were serving, how we should manage stakeholders in a dangerous, complex, chaotic environment with continual tension between Kurds and Arabs and how we might become sustainable.” What he did know, however, was that he had angle [(ÄNg&l] environment [In(vaI&rEnmEnt] formula [(fO:mjUlE] play safe [)pleI (seIf] polish [(pQlIS] refinement [ri(faInmEnt] research [ri(s§:tS] stakeholders [(steIk)hEUldEz] strive for sth. [(straIv fO:] sustainable: become ~ [sE(steInEb&l] tension [(tenS&n]

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Blickwinkel Umfeld Rezeptur, Strickmuster auf Nummer sicher gehen Schliff Raffinesse Untersuchungen Interessengruppe(n) nach etw. streben zukunftsfähig werden; hier: auf Dauer Bestand haben Spannung

is minimal because in a crisis, people typically want to play safe, which research shows is wrong. But people still do it and then they wonder why they are still in trouble. In a crisis, you can’t always use old formulas, which are in fact old answers to old questions. You need new answers to the new problems.

■ Intercultural competence is the ability to change perspective very fast and to look at a situation from a number of different angles so that you can see what else could be going on that you hadn’t thought of. The problem, of course, is that in crises, everybody goes back to their old behaviours, no matter how much education they have. At that point, when a project could just fall apart, you need to be trained to remember your intercultural knowledge.

Take the time to see whether cultural factors could be causing the problem. Then start a discussion and communicate in a way that will help you to find a third way, not your way or their way, but a third way that satisfies both parties.

to get the orchestra performing quickly, before supporters lost interest.

His first step was a “visioning workshop”. He says, “It would have been very wrong of me to fly into Iraq and just decide ‘This is what we are going to do’.” Although authoritarian leadership is common in Iraq, it was not what MacAlindin wanted to promote. “When you are actually playing music in an orchestra, then the conductor’s role is authoritarian. But my job, outside of conducting, was to learn about what the group wanted for their orchestra.”

And what they wanted was not much different from the wishes of any other youth orchestra: to fly to other countries, perform on international stages and make music contacts. However, the NYOI also had a bigger mission: to help build the musical future of their country.

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■ MANAGEMENT MUSIC

Tariq Hassoon

“Living with continuing conflict makes people feel helpless, afraid and focused on survival, even when the war is over,” says MacAlindin.

“NYOI players and friends wanted to set up their own projects to start questioning that mentality and to learn empowerment.” For this reason, MacAlindin gets both Kurdish and Arab Iraqi composers to write for the orchestra.

Aside from the usual difficulties of a new group getting to know each other, this team had huge intercultural challenges. Members included Kurds and Arabs, who have a centuries-old history of conflict. Some members came from feuding clans. There were religious differences but mostly, there were the personality conflicts typically found in groups of temperamental musicians.

Each year, new members are auditioned, meaning, when MacAlindin and the tutors do the yearly summer training, the mix of people changes. Special qualities are needed to get the trust of such a group. “You need to be able to change perspective very fast and to look at a situation from a number of different angles so that you can see what else could be going on that you hadn’t thought of,” says MacAlindin.

Some solutions came from unexpected places. In the very first course, the Kurds, the Arabs and the Englishspeaking tutors all sat at different tables. But then, one of the girls turned 18 and the group bought her a cake.

“We started playing music and dancing and it didn’t take us long to realize we were all mad party animals.

From that point, the group started to become a team,” he remembers.

The music usually does the rest. “While Kurdish members don’t speak Arabic because they don’t want to, and Arabs don’t speak Kurdish because it is a minority language, everyone understands the language of music,” explains MacAlindin. angle [(ÄNg&l] applicant [(ÄplIkEnt] brief: be ~ [bri:f] challenge [(tSÄlIndZ] clan [klÄn] composer [kEm(pEUzE] conducting lessons [kEn(dVktIN )les&nz] distraction [dI(strÄkS&n] empowerment [Im(paUEmEnt] enlarge sth. [In(lA:dZ] feuding [(fju:dIN] gateway [(geItweI] party animal [(pA:ti )ÄnIm&l] ifml. reconciliation [)rekEnsIli(eIS&n] temperamental [)temp&rE(ment&l] tutor [(tju:tE]

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“We started playing music and dancing and soon realized we’re all mad party animals” Because he has so little time to train the orchestra, he must lead differently. “It changes the way I teach, and it physically changes what I do with my body to communicate the music,” he says, adding that he never makes compromises about pushing the team hard because they are all going to present themselves in public.

But because all his instructions have to be translated into Arabic and Kurdish, he has to be as brief as possible. Indeed, training listening and communication skills within the orchestra is a big part of the programme. “It is also part of the reconciliation process because you have to listen to each other in order to communicate and respect each other,” he explains.

The group’s life in a post-war country does mean there are some advantages. “They don’t have the culture of permanent distraction that kids in Western countries have, with schools, clubs, Starbucks and cinema. So they are very focused and hard working. And each year, we get dramatically better.” The story of one NYOI violinist illustrates this: “I spent most of my childhood and youth in war,” says the young man, who asks to remain anonymous. He used to write a blog for Deutsche Welle but had to stop after something he wrote led to death threats. He says that the orchestra was a “gateway to great opportunities”. After studying music in his hometown of Ranya, he became a teacher. In 2010, he joined the NYOI, where he received conducting lessons.

He has since enlarged the orchestra in his town and reports that in its first year, the NYOI had five applicants from Ranya; now it is up to 12 members. “It’s great for me to be a member of this great orchestra, and meanwhile, I can give the useful knowledge I got from it to the students,” he says.

BS ■ Find out more about the National Youth Orchestra of Iraq at www.friends-nyoi.com For more on Paul MacAlindin, visit www.paulmacalindin.com

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