INTERNATIONAL OUD FESTIVAL JERUSALEM

Neta Elkayam, one of the performers at this year’s International Oud Festival

VISIT JERUSALEM in mid November and the exotic sounds of the sitar, bouzouki, oud, nai and kamanche will be heard across the city as the 17th annual International Oud Festival gets underway, with thousands of music lovers from Israel and abroad thronging to concerts held in a string of venues.

The Oud — the fretless instrument whose history is said to go back to the Bible and which some scholars say is the ugav of Psalm 150 — is widely used around the Mediterranean Basin, symbolising the many facets of cultural life across the area from Algiers to India.

Among festival guests this year are Ustad Shujaat Khan, the seventh generation of India’s leading sitar players, and Stavros Xarchakos and his ensemble from Greece. Besides the 42 albums Xarchakos has recorded, he has also composed the music for 15 films including Rembetiko.

There will also be musical tributes to the famous Egyptian songstress Um Kalthoum led by Prof Tayseer Elias, as well as a tribute to the work of Zohara Alfasia, the greatest diva to emerge from Moroccan Jewry. In addition, local Israeli ensembles will be playing both traditional and new works.

The festival has earned a name not only for the music it offers, but also for its strong message of unity in diversity. Its founder, the late Kalman Sultanik, saw music as a bridge between peoples and for whom barriers did not exist. A Holocaust survivor himself, he funded the Zionist Confederation House which organises this festival.

The fact that the festival began in 2001, in the middle of the second Intifada, says much about the intentions of the organisers. Effie Benaye, who heads the ZCH, is pleased that local Arabs participate not only as audience but also as artists.

“This is what Jerusalem can be,” he says, noting that the Festival is now on the international list of events to see. “This is why we attract the top artists in the world.”