Individual redemption through the power of music rings loud and true in remarkable Palestinian phenomenon

Chicago Palestine Film Festival photo

Never, ever underestimate the power of mentorship.

Thanks to helping hands, a boy raised among the nearly 1 million Palestinians living in refugee camps in the Middle East, grew up with a love of classical music. He learned to play the viola and, since 2003, continues to mobilize every interested person and spare musical instrument so that Palestinian children can have access to the multi-faceted benefits of music.

You can read and listen to a condensed version of the story of 31-year-old Ramzi Hussein Aburedwan on NPR. 

Aburedwan and his music organization were the subject of a 2006 French documentary film, It's Not a Gun. Much of his success is due to the French connection, which began at the Conservatoire in Paris. Every June since 2002, there has been a music festival in Angers, which initially gave Aburedwan a voice, and helped him launch his massive project with donated instruments and volunteer musical visitors only a year later.

The first harpsichord in Palestine arrived thanks to him. He inspired the creation of the first festival of Baroque music in his native land, in 2004. Now, more than 500 children have access to music instruments and teachers in safe schools.

Because there is such a heavy French connection in all this, most of the stories about the project and Aburedwan have, so far, been written in French. If you can read it, you can visit the Al Kamandjati website for much more information.

What I find most inspirational in all this is the long chain of helping hands that helped replace the stone in an angry 8-year-old's hand with a viola, that helped that viola become part of an orchestra, that linked up to interested people around the world, and then reached back to where it started, finding more lost 8-year-olds, whose lives will be forever changed for the better.

Here is a short video profile of Al Kamandjati school life made last year by Saed Karzoun:

Now, a jazz combo from one of the Al Kamandjati schools tackling some Miles Davis last month:

xxx

United Airlines flight crew instructs cellist to buy first-class ticket for his instrument, or wait for another flight

Ever since 9/11, airport security people and flight crews have looked askance at the odd-shaped, often large cases that musicians refuse to check in at the baggage counter. If the instrument is large enough, it needs to get its own seat on an airplane (that was the case before 9/11, too). The musician has to swallow the expense of the extra ticket, but that's that.

The New York Post reported yesterday that the crew of one United Airlines Flight from Denver to New York City insisted that Greg Beaver, of the Chiara String Quartet, either buy a first-class ticket for his cello, or wait for another flight.

The article says that the American Federation of Musicians is trying to get the FAA to recognize the special needs of musicians. Right now, decisions about where and when a musical instrument can be brought onboard a flight are up to individual crews.

You can read the whole article here.

After a short video clip showing musical instruments as "passengers" on a plane, I've added a clip of the Chiara String Quartet performing a section of the final movement of a quartet they commissioned from Jefferson Friedman, at the Poisson Rouge in New York two months ago.

Westben festival opens 11th season with premiere of new musical inspired by a favourite Oscar Wilde tale

The Westben Festival launches its 11th summer season with all-ages-friendly premiere tonight of a brand-new musical adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s story, The Selfish Giant, by Brian Finley and Ken Tizzard. 

The breezy, accessible pop-style music makes this a friendly, all-ages outing featuring a cast of 35 children’s voices as well as seasoned professionals such as Robert Longo, Gabrielle Prata and Donna Bennett. There is more background information, as well as clips of the soloists and kids in rehearsal at the festival's website.

And nothing beats the country serenity of the purpose-built concert barn that’s just a short drive in from the picturesque banks of the Trent River at Campbellford. The sides of the building open up to let in the smells and sounds of the meadows that surround the concert space. It's like having an open-air concert without having to worry about rain or wind -- and this setup offers much better acoustics.

The whole Westben experience is like a visit to a friend's country house -- but with better music. Even on nights when they're performing, husband-and-wife hosts Brian Finley and Donna Bennett usually spend some time on the lawn greeting their patrons before a concert, at intermission, and afterward.

The Selfish Giant continues on June 12, 13, 18, 19 & 20.

For tickets and more information about the whole festival, call 1-877-883-5777 or visit www.westben.ca

Remembrance of Things Past: French manuscript museum reopens with intimacies by Proust and the Schumanns

 

A collection of personal papers from Marcel Proust is the star attraction for the reopening of the Musée des lettres et manuscrits in Paris today. (The original museum was created by Gérard L'Héritier at another location in 2004.)

The broad collection of original papers includes music, spanning the 17th to 20th centuries, from Lully to Prokofiev.

The Romantic collection includes a lovingly matched set (recto and verso) of improvisations Robert and Clara Schumann dedicated to each other in 1853, in lieu of what, for ordinary people, would be an exchange of love notes (Robert would die two-and-a-half years later).

According to the museum, Robert's moment musical is a variation based on a theme from his Symphonic Etudes. Clara's is based on the first piece in the second set of his Bunte Blätter.

Understandably, the museum has set up its website so that I can't show you the manuscript. To do so, click here (typically for many French institutions, there is no English option available for visitors).

Julian Lloyd Webber succumbs to the miraculous force of Venezuela's El Sistema

English cellist Julian Lloyd Webber spearheded In Harmony, a project to bring music education to underprivileged children in London that was modeled on venezuela's El Sistema. He hadn't visited Venezuela until recently, though. In yesterday's Telegraph, he gushed about what he saw. Near the beginning of his account, he writes:

In all honesty, there has been so much furore about El Sistema in the musical world that I was prepared to be disappointed. Instead, I returned convinced that, alongside the huge additional benefit of harnessing the power of music to improve social cohesion, I had seen the template for music education in the 21st century.

As I wrote in the Star last month, there are many similar efforts underway in the Greater Toronto Area. They need our encouragement and support.

Venezuela's El Sistema at work -- in pictures

There are so many things I'd like to add to my article on El Sistema -- and I probably will as the time approaches for the Simón Bolivár Youth Orchestra's arrival in Toronto on Oct. 26.

But nothing is as eloquent as pictures of Venezuelan children in the middle of it all. 

These images, taken by Toronto Symphony Orchestra director of artistic administration Loie Fallis a few months ago, capture the mood in sequence, from the youngest (who start at age 3) to the oldest, who audition to become members of the Simón Bolivár orchestra. We see them at the end in the new Caracas music centre's concert hall, rehearsing Camille Saint-Saëns' "Organ" Symphony:

Enterprising trio sets off on entrepreneurial trek

The Mosaico String Trio, which I mentioned in my article about music at Mount Pleasant Cemetery yesterday, provided an interesting little glimpse into the chances and coincidences of being a music student.

I spoke to violinist Javier Reyes, violist Polyana Castro and cellist Angharad Parkes after the outdoor recital. The three told me they had just graduated from the Royal Conservatory's Glenn Gould Professional School, so I asked what was next on their agenda.

"Moving to the Cayman Islands," replied Parkes.

I started to laugh, thinking this was the kind of non-sequitur silliness that makes 30 Rock so funny.

The three faces in front of me were smiling, but, clearly, this wasn't meant to be a joke.

(By the way, I've tried and repeated every way possible of putting my foot in my mouth over the years.)

The Mosaico really is going to the Cayman Islands on Aug. 29.

Already used to travelling the world, and faced with a shortage of work here, the three grads are taking a professional leap with a mixture of missionary zeal and entrepreneurial grit.

"We'll be teaching in schools there and, hopefully, setting up some sort of a concert series," Parkes explained. "Right now, there's nothing. So it's an opportunity."

Parkes said that a friend had gone to the Caymans for a concert, and had mentioned that there was a  blank musical canvas waiting for anyone adventurous enough to give it a splatter.

The British territory has a population smaller than Peterborough's (which is 75,000), and is said to have more registered businesses than inhabitants, thanks to being a tax haven. But it also has the highest standard of living in the Caribbean. So, between its wealth and the number of tourists that pass through every year, classical music should be able to have a chance.

All three trio members are from elsewhere. Parkes is originally from Manchester, the other two from Chile -- Reyes from Santiago, Castro from La Serena, nearly 500 km up the coast. The Chileans had to look outside their country for postgraduate musical education, because they said there is none in Chile.

Through the summer festival in Orford, Que., Reyes and Castro met Toronto violinist Mayumi Seiler and liked her so much that they wanted to follow her to the Royal Conservatory.

All three musicians, who came together as a trio at the Conservatory, have attended a number of summer music festivals -- including the Toronto Summer Music Festival, which wrapped up last week. They said it is as high quality, from a student's point-of-view, as any out there.

"Usually, a summer music festival is somewhere out in the country, far away rom everything, so it's a chance to clear your head," said Reyes. "But the Toronto festival is also very nice, and gave us a chance to work with some great musicians."

Castro smiled broadly as she recalled master classes with the Leipzig String Quartet.

Parkes' high point was master classes with veteran cellist Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi. "He was just, well, Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi! Absolutely amazing," Parkes enthused.

All three have only spent two years passing through Toronto. So I was curious about what they liked most about the city.

Parkes: "I absolutely love the TSO when Peter Oundjian is conducting." She comes from a city well known for its fine classical performers, including the Hallé Orchestra, so that is high praise.

Reyes and Castro: Music Toronto's chamber music series, which they both described as particularly fine.

Here is the Leipzig String Quartet playing the beautifully melancholy "Lento" movement from Antonin Dvorák's "American" Quartet (Op. 96), in a live concert in Japan two years ago:

In praise of the summer music camp

That's what kids having a good time sounds like. Really.

It's a sure bet that most of us remember the drudgery of weekly music lessons from when we were growing up. Some of that drudgery is necessary, some not. But the reality of having music lessons crammed in with all the other needs and wants and constraints of the regular school year means that a lot of the fun gets sacrificed on the altar of efficiency.

Summer music camps are the perfect antidote, combining the raw power of daily immersion in a setting that looks and feels like it's part of a summer vacation.

Once hooked, kids make swifter progress. Listen to the difference a decade makes (I apologise for not knowing more about the people in these videos):

.. and, then, you're set for life.

There are summer camps for adults, too.

Here is a two-part mini documentary from 2007 on a 10-day summer camp (well, they call it a seminar) that the St. Lawrence String Quartet hosts annually at its home base, Stanford University (this year's starts Friday). The most beautiful thing here is how it provides a place where advanced adult amateurs can perform with the world's finest professionals.

Opera on the Amazon

There’s an opera festival underway right now on the banks of the Rio Negro where it meets up with the Amazon River in the Brazilian rain forest.

The theme this year meshes with a countrywide celebration of French culture. This week, the 13th annual Festival Amazonas de Ópera, presented Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila and Debussy’s Pélléas et Mélisande. 

May brings Bizet’s Carmen, Berlioz’ Les troyens and, on May 31, Offenbach’s La vie parisienne.

While the overwhelmingly Brazilian cast and orchestra rehearse the closing operas, residents of the Montreal-sized city of Manaus will enjoy art-song recitals and performances of smaller works, such as Stavinsky’s Apollon Musagète and Britten’s gorgeous Illuminations for soprano and strings.

The closing Vie parisienne will be performed in the town’s main square, to an expected crowd of about 40,000 people.

La vie parisienne is an interesting choice, as the city was known as the Paris of the jungle at the end of the 19th century, when Manaus had grown into a regional trading hub to service the thriving rubber trade.

The founding of the Amazonas opera festival in 1996 marked the 100th anniversary of the opening of the gorgeous, Iberian-style opera house. It had fallen into ruin during Brazil’s economic decline after World War II and was carefully restored to its colonial-age glory in the early 1970s. Its many murals and frescoes depict scenes of Amazonian life.

The festival was part of a well-funded effort to bring high culture back Amazonas state. The city now boasts its own permanent orchestra, chorus and, as the cast lists for this year’s production show, a rich supply of local vocal talent.

Tickets cost between 10 and 80 Real, or about $5.50-$44 (Cdn.). That may seem cheap, but, in 2005, the mean income in Manaus was the equivalent of $250 per month.

That local and national governments are giving sustained support to the enterprise is wonderful enough (France’s Le Monde newspaper reported yesterday that culture minister Roberio Braga has access to 2 per cent of the state’s budget).

Seeing that people are willing to pay a relatively high price for the pleasures of opera is, in its own way, the strongest endorsement of the artform.

There is no translation available for the festival's Portuguese-language website, but anyone who understands a Latin-based language should be able to navigate it.

I found a short, 1970s government-made documentary on the restoration of the opera house on YouTube:

A sadly misguided book review

In Saturday’s Globe and Mail, writer Joe Queenan wrote a nasty book review that did injustice to some captivating storytelling. But what has had me riled since reading the review  is Queenan’s fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of music.

And if he thinks this way, there must be other people who do, too.

The book in question is The Cello Suites, a fascinating chronicle published two weeks ago by House of Anansi of one man’s fascination with a piece of music and the scenic trails of discovery -- musical, historical and personal -- that ensue.

The author, Eric Siblin, is an experienced journalist who knows how to tell a good story. (You can read an interview I had with him at on the Star's website)

Queenan’s main problem with the book, as I understand it, is that one shouldn’t try to see the Great Composers, in this case J.S. Bach, outside their original context. That mentioning the pop band U2 in the same sentence as Bach is sacrilege

Queenan closes his assessment with this:

"Infinitely changeable, Bach is what you make of him," Siblin writes, regurgitating one of those Bach, Happening Dude bromides that gained currency in the 1960s. But Bach is not infinitely changeable, and he is not what you make of him. Bach is Bach. Titian is Titian. Homer is Homer.”

The reviewer’s main mistake is in assuming that the music is somehow a thing in itself, as is Titian’s painting, as is Homer’s storytelling. But they are not. The reason is simple: Music doesn’t exist until I decide to play it -- either as an interpreter or as a listener. Bach, meaning what Bach wrote, is nothing but ink dots on piles of paper.

If I place that paper on the music stand as hit those notes on the piano keys, Bach comes to life -- but it’s my Bach, the composer’s ideas as filtered by my eyes, my musical tastes and my moving fingers.

I turn on my iPod, and it’s Yo Yo Ma’s version of Bach’s Cello Suites that I hear. Or Pablo Casals’. And they’re completely different.

No two interpreters are alike. No two voices are alike. Bach, or Beethoven, or Joni Mitchell or ABBA are born anew with each person who chooses to perform or sing their music.

Meanwhile, the Titian painting is there, waiting for each new set of eyes. The crackled oils remain unchanged, but what each new admirers sees is also different, depending on what they see and how they interpret what they see.

The same holds true for The Odyssey or The Iliad. They are but words on a page until visions of Troy and the Aegean Sea are conjured in the reader’s brain.

Art is a never-ending process of re-creation and re-imagination. Eric Siblin’s first contact, seduction and eventual obsession is a beautiful example of that process, artfully retold.

Music, visual art, literature and theatre don’t live in museums and libraries. They live when they are taken into our hands and aired out in the light of each new day -- infinitely changeable.