National youth orchestra of iraq: book launch of upbeat

National Youth Orchestra of Iraq: Book launch of Upbeat

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09/08/16 23:30

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THE STORY OF THE NATIONAL YOUTH ORCHESTRA OF IRAQ This entry was posted in News and tagged iraq Music, Iraq orchestra, National Youth Orchestra of Iraq, orchestra, Paul MacAlindin on 08/08/2016 by Sandy. View all posts by Sandy → Join The Conversation

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NATIONAL YOUTH ORCHESTRA OF IRAQ Often the best opportunities are staring us right in the face and it was no different for conductor, Paul MacAlindin way back when in 2008. Whilst on his way from Germany to his home country of Scotland, he stopped off for a pub lunch at The Barony Bar in Edinburgh. Just as he was digging in to his ﬁsh chips he spotted an intriguing headline: ‘Iraqi teen seeks maestro for youth orchestra’, read the story in The Herald. There was not an iota of hesitation from the Scottish conductor. “It was a gut reaction of ‘I know how to do this,’” says MacAlindin. The story was a direct reprint of a press release from the British Council concerning a Baghdadi teenager’s plea for a British conductor to help form a national youth orchestra in Iraq. Aged just 17, Zuhal Sultan was an ambitious young pianist at the time and, after MacAlindin’s initial research, a Skype interview between the two followed and the project sprang to life. Although this was something of a new direction for MacAlindin, he felt ready for the challenge: “I’m a freelance conductor and I’ve always been a freelance conductor, you basically learn you’re in a Wild West situation.” With this can-do attitude, it didn’t take long before he began setting about this most ambitious project. Often operating from his local Starbucks in Cologne and armed with his MacBook, he auditioned players from all corners of Iraq via YouTube and soon assembled a body of talent upon which to build the orchestra.

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Chosen for its relative safety, the players ﬁrst met in the city of Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdish region of Iraq. After an initial hiccup with the rehearsal space, the Deputy Prime Minister at the time, Doctor Barham Salih, helped provide them with the city’s Palace of Arts. Despite the lavish surroundings, practices were occasionally tense affairs. Some of the instruments were warped and cracked due to the heat and some musicians had picked up poor technique. It took a lot of time, effort and concentration to get things underway.

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The group was made up of a cross section of the country from Sunni, Shia, atheists, Kurds and Arabs; some of who had never interacted with people from other backgrounds. Not one but two translators were needed to convert every word from English to Arabic and Kurdish. Despite this, MacAlindin, along with his team of seven music tutors from around the world, soon had them sounding like a decent outﬁt.

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However, despite initial success with the music, it quickly became apparent that he had to get them out of the country. “It was a gigantic war of self-sabotage and the only thing to do to keep the orchestra alive was to take it out of Iraq and turn it into an international diplomat and improve the playing. The whole thing is based on one motivation alone and that is to get to the concert.”

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MacAlindin has now put this whirlwind of a tale in ink in his debut book, Upbeat: The Story of the National Youth Orchestra of Iraq. The story winds its way from the initial process of securing funding to the sad yet inevitable downfall of the orchestra. After landmark concerts at the Beethoven Festival in Bonn and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, amongst others, by 2014 the team was ready to crack America. The United States Citizen and Immigration

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http://www.7ahead.com/blog/story-national-youth-orchestra-iraq/

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National Youth Orchestra of Iraq: Book launch of Upbeat

09/08/16 23:30

Service (USCIS) had other ideas however and the project faced a roadblock. “ISIL was gaining territory in Iraq as the visa application was being processed. Meanwhile the Ministry of Culture in Baghdad was tearing itself apart over the

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project. Six weeks before we were ready to step on the plane, ISIL invaded Mosul. The US embassy got shut down so