Palestinian Orchestra Debuts--73 Years After The Original Jewish One

Palestinian Arabs are taking a cultural route towards creating a state--by starting the Palestine National Orchestra

Today an orchestra, tomorrow a state.

With these words, Suhail Khoury, director of the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music, introduced the Palestine National Orchestra in its debut Friday in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

More than 40 Palestinian and foreign musicians came together to make the dream of a national orchestra a reality. The task was not easy, particularly because most of the musicians also play with renowned orchestras around the world. But for most of them, putting together a Palestinian national orchestra is seen as a stepping stone toward building an independent state of Palestine.

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It's an interesting idea--and maybe they will be as successful as the ones who first created the Palestine Symphony Orchestra 74 years ago:

Time Magazine reported on the Palestine Symphony Orchestra's first performance in its January 4, 1937 issue:

As a full Palestine moon rode one evening last week over Tel Aviv, exclusively Jewish city, the Hebrew Sabbath ended and thousands of Jews began to move toward the Levant Fair Grounds. There they packed the Italian Pavilion to capacity to hear great Arturo Toscanini lead Palestine's first civic orchestra through its first performance. Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope, the British High Commissioner, brought with him a party of notables. Open-shirted German immigrants gathered in rowboats on the adjacent Yarkon River. A few Arab fishermen paddled quietly toward shore, listened respectfully outside the pavilion walls which are still pitted by Arab bullets.

...The Palestine Symphony Orchestra now numbers 72. Germans make up about half the number, the rest are Poles and Russians. Six are natives of Palestine which has several competent music schools but welcomes the new orchestra as its only permanent symphony. So many first-desk musicians are playing in it that critics expect the Palestine Symphony to rank soon among the first four orchestras in the world...

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Those were the days--when both Jews and Arabs were referred to as 'Palestinian', and a Jewish symphony would play in Egypt.

After playing in Ramallah, the Palestine National Orchestra is scheduled to play in Jerusalem and Haifa.

Technorati Tag: Palestine National Orchestra and Palestine Symphony Orchestra.