Music across barriers

Subject: Music across barriers
From: Emma B
Date: 16 Apr 09 - 09:10 PM

'Israeli conductor Barenboim gets ovation in Egypt'

"Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim stirred a sold out Cairo Opera House Thursday with a performance of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, drawing ovations in his first visit to Egypt.
The famed musician's enthusiastic welcome in a major Arab capital reflected his years of advocacy for peace with the Palestinians and Arab world and his efforts to use music to bring people together in a region where conflict otherwise keeps them apart."

Daniel Barenboim speaks out about performing in Egypt

Subject: RE: Music across barriers
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 01:03 PM

Several years ago, my wife and I went to a memorial service for Lee Haggerty, co-founder of Folk Legacy Records with the Paton. Each musician or singer did a song as a sing-around in memory of Lee. I chose, spur of the moment to do a song I'd written but rarely sung in public, May My Heart Find Rest in Thee. It might have been an off choice, because as far as I know, Lee didn't believe in God. But, it seemed like the right song to do. There was a woman and her husand at the memorial who I didn't meet, and didn't know. As I found out shortly afterward, she knew that she only had a few months to live, and one of her last rquests was that I sing with the Gospel Messengers at her memorial service because she loved black gospel.
Again, that not have seemed like a logical choice to some people because she and her husband were Jewish as were most of the people who came to the memorial service. We did a short set of black gospel in a peaceful setting out in the woods behind their house in northwest Connecticut, including May My Heart Find Rest in Thee, which I didn't normally do with the Messengers. It was a sweet gathering of people to lovingly remember a woman I never knowingly met. There were no cultural or religious barriers, and that's as it should be.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music across barriers - Music for peace
From: freda underhill
Date: 05 Jun 10 - 02:19 AM

Time to revive this thread, in consideration of the debate raging about Israel and Palestine at present.

While people can argue all day about what's wrong, a number of musicians from Israel, Palestine, and other middle eastern countries are playing music together.

An Arab Israeli orchestra, known as the West-Eastern Divan orchestra was jointly founded by Jewish conductor Daniel Barenboim with the late Palestinian-American intellectual and humanist Edward Said, who was a close friend. It is an initiative which brings together, every summer, a group of talented young classical musicians from Israel and Arab countries.

With respect to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Barenboim has spoken about the need for both sides to begin to understand each other:

"There is no way Israel will deal with the Palestinians if the Palestinians do not understand the suffering of the Jewish people ... now fifty years after that we have to accept co-responsibility for Palestinian suffering. Until an Israeli leader is able to utter those words there will be no peace."

Subject: RE: Music across barriers
From: Leadfingers
Date: 05 Jun 10 - 02:29 AM

'Israeli conductor Barenboim gets ovation in Egypt'
I never even knew he played Guitar