Youth orchestras in the Middle East, 2016 – Michael Church's blog
14/04/2017, 23*27
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Youth orchestras in the Middle East, 2016 Posted on August 24, 2016 (http://theotherclassicalmusics.org/blog/2016/08/24/the-palestine-youthorchestra-hits-the-road-2016/) by Michael Church (http://theotherclassicalmusics.org/blog/author/michaelchurch/)
Daniel Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra (WEDO), created in 1999, is by no means the only youth
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orchestra to have emerged from the cauldron of the Middle East. Four years later in Ramallah, the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music launched the Palestinian Youth Orchestra, with a political agenda very
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different from that of WEDO. Barenboim and his co-founder Edward Said designed WEDO to ‘promote understanding’ between Israelis and Palestinians, whereas the PYO has a much more combative remit. Its founder Suhail Khoury hopes it will help forge a new Palestinian identity by becoming a cultural rallying-point for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, and for diaspora Palestinians in other Arab countries whom he believes the Israeli army of occupation is systematically excluding from their homeland. Each summer the PYO meets for an intensive week’s training followed by a tour, which has currently brought them to Britain for the first time. And while admitting that the PYO doesn’t have the polish of WEDO (all fledgling professionals), the PYO’s British conductor Sian Edwards speaks glowingly of the exponential rate at which their playing has improved over the last ten years. Most of her 85 players are from educated professional backgrounds, but some are self-taught and others have been taught via video; a handful of young, British-based, instrumentalists are helping the less experienced players keep up. Support in kind has come in many ways, Edwards says. There being no euphonium in the Palestinian territories, the orchestra borrowed one, together with its player, as it did a celeste plus its player. Since they couldn’t afford to bring cellos and double-basses by air – each would have required an additional seat – British friends have lent instruments. Edwards talks wearily of the Israeli border controls: two young Gazans who should have been on the tour were denied travel permission at the last minute, with no reasons given. ‘The Israelis simply regard us as a nuisance,’ she says.
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