Mozart In Palestine
Here's an interesting side of Palestine you don't hear often about:
The name Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has not been heard so frequently in the West Bank as in the past two weeks, during the Palestinian Mozart Festival. Fifty works by this great composer, some of them very rare, were performed in every musical art form: from solo songs to operas, and from chamber ensembles to orchestras. More than half the musicians were Palestinians; the others came from around the world. Some 20 concerts, as well as films, master classes and workshops, brought the music of this 18th century Viennese to West Bank towns for the first time.
Would they come, or wouldn't they? This was the question that hung in the air in the two hours preceding the Choir of London concert at the Al Masri Cultural Centre in Nablus. Sami Hamad, director of the center and responsible for the festival in his city, chain-smoked as he waited.
"There is an important wedding in the city," he sighed, "and it is simply impossible to tell if an audience will come."
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