War, broken lives and the bravest youth orchestra in the world
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Cellist Tuqa Alwaeli playing with the National Youth Orchestra of Iraq in 2011
CREDIT: TARIQ HASSOON
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By Ivan Hewett, CLASSICAL MUSIC CRITIC 8 AUGUST 2016 • 6:00PM
H
ow does one create a national youth orchestra in the middle of a war zone? It's a question that still puzzles Scottish conductor Paul MacAlindin, who gave five years of his life to what some would call a utopian dream, others sheer folly.
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It all began in the summer of 2008, when MacAlindin was having lunch in a Glasgow pub and a newspaper article caught his eye. The headline read: 'Search for UK maestro to create an orchestra in Iraq'. "Fixated on the article, fish trembling on the end of my fork, I said to myself: 'I know how to do this.' " That is how he describes the moment of decision in Upbeat, his new book about the creation of the National Youth Orchestra of Iraq.
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War, broken lives and the bravest youth orchestra in the world
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He soon had to eatyour his words, along withwhat’s the fish. Creating a national hareable Put energy into The benefits of youth moving to a Share your views and win a Exper orchestra in the West is not so hard, because certain things can be assumed: the important retirement home £25 Amazon voucher cultur ability to travel without fear; a transparent legal and institutional framework;
t desirable sights from Whether it’s art, music, literature or sport, doing It is one of the most important decisions you the you best players without to so gender, racetoor ations and the freedom what to youchoose love can keep engaged willregard ever make, you’re bound have questions religion. Plus a good level of instrumental education, and a network of school Read more › and youth orchestras.
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Everyone has an opinion. Why not get rewarded Polish cap for yours? Join Telegraph Pulse panel Krakow a Read more ›
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“Even if I die, I can be happy now because of what I achieved” Bashdar Sidiqm National Youth Orchestra of Iraq
None of this could be assumed in Iraq. There was only one orchestra in the entire country, the Iraqi Symphony Orchestra (ISO), and music tuition was practically non-existent. Undaunted, MacAlindin drew up a plan to establish a summer school, with himself conducting, and a programme of intensive tuition by top-flight orchestral players from Europe, all leading to a grand closing concert. The obstacles were formidable. The organisational framework for the orchestra consisted of MacAlindin and his laptop, firing off pleading missives to Iraqi politicians and Western funding bodies. But the conductor had one powerful ally - the teenager who had been the subject of the original newspaper article: Zuhal Sultan. A feisty 17-year-old pianist who had been born in Baghdad, Sultan had played with the ISO aged only 15. She was now a member of the orchestra and in the care of her brother, as her father had been killed in a robbery and her mother had died. She knew from experience how music could rebuild lives, and the national youth orchestra had been her idea.
Dobbs Harteshorne, one of the orchestra's tutors, in Kurdistan in January 2016 CREDIT: KURDISTAN SAVE THE CHILDREN
"A Kurdish politician saw one of her tweets and pledged his immediate support," says MacAlindin. "I doubt whether anyone's ever earned $50,000 so fast."
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War, broken lives and the bravest youth orchestra in the world
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Thanks to this all-important contact, the path was smoothed for the orchestra's first summer school in 2009. Auditions were carried out on YouTube, as face-toface auditions in such a dangerous country were out of the question. The venue for the school was in the Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyah. On the first day everything was miraculously in place. Now came the hard bit; turning a bunch of raw recruits into an orchestra. Many had received barely any tuition and had learnt what they knew through videos online. On top of this, the young musicians had been pursuing their passion in almost impossible circumstances. One instrumentalist from Sadr City had had to muffle his horn when he practised, as music had been banned by the authorities. Violinist Aya Isham told MacAlindin that she had had to step around corpses in the street on her way to primary school. During the invasion in 2003 she had been sent away to live with her grandmother and when she had returned she'd discovered all the instruments in her school had been destroyed.
The National Youth Orchestra of Iraq on stage CREDIT: TARIQ HASSOON
Given all this, the fact that any sort of orchestra could be brought together seems a miracle. MacAlindin admits the first tentative steps at playing Haydn's Symphony No 99 were lamentable. "The players were competent, but there was a coldness in the playing, which to me was a sign of how traumatised they were by living in a war zone." There were numerous other hurdles, from power cuts to gender politics. "The boys wouldn't accept a female orchestral leader," he says. "But in the end I persuaded them to accept a woman as coleader." Over the next two years the musicians improved by leaps and bounds and MacAlindin finally felt confident enough to take them overseas, first to Germany, then to Britain in 2012. "We started off sounding like a school orchestra and ended up with something respectable enough to offer to a Western audience," he says. "The most dramatic thing was the increase in confidence. This orchestra was something they could point to and say, 'We achieved this, we are worth something.' " http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/war-broken-lives-and-the-bravest-youth-orchestra-in-the-world/
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War, broken lives and the bravest youth orchestra in the world
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A sixth summer school was planned along with a trip to America, but the plan collapsed thanks to "the combined forces of Isil and the US Citizenship and Immigration Service", as MacAlindin puts it. But he is proud of what he achieved, as are the players, many of whom have seen their lives transformed Zuhal Sultan is now studying law at Glasgow University, and several players gained scholarships to study in the West. One player, Bashdar Sidiq, says: "When the orchestra made its first journey to Germany and I came back home, I told myself, 'Now Bashdar, even if you die, be happy because you have done something in the music world.' Simply, the orchestra changed my life and made my dream come true." Upbeat by Paul MacAlindin (Sandstone Press, £19.99) will be published on August 18
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