Orchestra brings message of peace to divided America
WASHINGTON: Israeli, Palestinian and other Middle Eastern musicians brought a message of peace this week to an America torn by caustic political discourse.
For nearly 20 years, youths from sworn enemy countries have performed classical music together at the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, the brainchild of conductor Daniel Barenboim and late Palestinian American scholar Edward Said.
“We are looking for something almost impossible, but still we try,” said Kian Soltani, 26, a rising Austrian Iranian cellist who gave a fiery performance on Wednesday at Washington’s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
The orchestra opened its programme with Richard Strauss’s symphonic poem Don Quixote, inspired by the early 17th century novel about the romantic knight-errant who combats imaginary tyrants.
In many ways, the piece is a metaphor for the orchestra itself.
“If somebody would tell us that peace in the Middle East was impossible, we wouldn’t stop fighting. We would still continue like this because we believe it’s possible,” said Soltani, who played the title role.
“It’s the same for Don Quixote. He thinks he’s a knight, he thinks his dream is possible.
“Everyone is telling him it’s not, but he doesn’t care.”
Quixotic as it may be, the project is making its first coast-to-coast American tour just as the United States reels from a series of deadly hate crimes.
Politics and war have thwarted a goal to perform in all the members’ home countries. There was a concert in the West Bank city of Ramallah, in 2005, and none in Israel.
“It’s a pity,” violist Miriam Manasherov, 37, said.
“The day that will come that we can all play in Israel or in the other Arab countries that I can’t go to, that will be a huge success.” — AFP