Daniel Barenboim conducts the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in Beethoven'sFourth Symphony at the BBC Proms[/caption]
This year’s BBC Proms featured a number of concerts related to the Arab world. Prom 14 featured a world premier of a piece by Omar Souleyman, arranged by Jacob Garchik entitled La sidounak sayyada – I’ll Prevent the Hunters from Hunting You.
Souleyman is a Syrian musician from Ras Al Ayn who sings primarily in Arabic and Kurdish. He is widely known for his music performances at weddings in Syria and the Middle East but in the last few years he has performed internationally at music festivals in Glastonbury and Austin, Texas, amongst other places. Souleyman is known for his creative partnerships with poets, with whom he often performs at weddings.
In 2007 Souleyman’s first cd was released in the West by Sublime Frequences, entitled Highway to Hassake. This cd reflected a pastiche of Souleyman’s music from the mid 1990s through 2006 resulting in a combination of dabke folk music, vocals, keyboard music, and a pace and volume that’s generally fast and furious incorporating elements of house, Arab inspired trance, and electronica.
Most of the music at the Proms is, however, in the classical tradition. Daniel Barenboim’s famed West-Eastern Divan Orchestra performed several concerts of music to acclaim as part of their Beethoven/Berlioz cycle throughout July. Barenboim conducted all nine Beethoven symphonies. The West-Eastern Divan orchestra is famed for its unusual vision and composition. Born out of the commitment of two friends, one Jewish and Argentinean-Israeli (Barenboim) the other Palestinian-American (Edward Said) the orchestra brings together Israeli and Palestinian musicians as well as musicians from Arab countries in the Middle East creating music that transcends conflict and promotes cultural exchange.
The orchestra was created in 1999 by the two men, beginning as a series of workshops which then developed into an orchestra, with performances in Weimar and Chicago. The orchestra is now based in Seville, Spain and receives funding from the Spanish government and from the Barenboim-Said Foundation and the Daniel Barenboim Foundation.
Although the orchestra believes passionately in the values of peaceful coexistence in an environment that respects equality and seeks to encourage these values through its activities and performances it also has a humble sense of reality as to the role of music in relation to the broader Arab-Israeli conflict and its inherent limitations.
Its idealism is grounded in a pragmatic and sound understanding of the importance of taking individuals out of conflict situations and providing them with a context which rehumanizes the other. This allows for a new relationship based on trust and shared commitment towards a positive goal outside conflict, engendering a new reality, psychological and ethical alike which is liberating for participants and audiences.
[inset_left]"Music grants the individual the right and obligation to express himself fully while listening to his or her neighbor"
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As the orchestra states, “Music by itself can, of course, not resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. Music grants the individual the right and obligation to express himself fully while listening to his or her neighbor.”
Barenboim has eloquently affirmed the goals of the orchestra and its core values. "The Divan is not a love story, and it is not a peace story. It has very flatteringly been described as a project for peace. It isn't. It's not going to bring peace, whether you play well or not so well. The Divan was conceived as a project against ignorance… it is absolutely essential for people to get to know the other, to understand what the other thinks and feels, without necessarily agreeing with it. I'm not trying to convert the Arab members of the Divan to the Israeli point of view, and [I'm] not trying to convince the Israelis to the Arab point of view. But I want to - and unfortunately I am alone in this now that Edward died a few years ago - ...create a platform where the two sides can disagree and not resort to knives."
The orchestra is composed in equal parts of Arab and Israeli members who are joined by Spanish members as well. The orchestra’s activities center on the summer season, where they meet for rehearsals in Seville, as well as various lectures and discussions and then go on tour with most concerts falling between May and September.
They have performed in Morocco, Ramallah, Israel, the United States, and across the European Union. Daniel Barenboim has also contributed to the development of a Palestinian youth orchestra in the West Bank as well as a music kindergarten in the West Bank. There are relatively few examples of such sustained shared cultural projects that bring together Arabs and Israelis in the Middle East.
The West-Eastern Divan orchestra is in its own way a radical enterprise characterized by tolerance and moderation and humanistic values that transcend ethnic background, nationality, and religion. Although it focuses on bringing together Arabs and Israelis its motivating philosophy can be applied fruitfully in other situations of conflict whether within communities that suffer from internal tensions or internationally, between peoples in conflict in other regions of the world.
