Campus concert at the Beethovenfest
October 3, 2011
During the intermission, the buzz is like at a school concert. The audience exchanges niceties. "Cute, somehow" - the camel story set to music by Iraqi composer Amin Ezzat for the National Youth Orchestra of Iraq - "sounds almost like jazz." In another corner, there’s talk about the German President, giving an interview backstage. With champagne and good spirits flowing, nobody wants to say out loud that the young Iraqis perhaps haven’t fully found their voice yet. Can they articulate a vision by means of music? That's not quiet clear yet either.
A single breath
In the second part, it's completely different. Perhaps the musicians have lost their nervousness. Perhaps it’s due to violinist Arabella Steinbacher, who exudes so much calm and attentiveness that in the Larghetto, conductor Paul MacAlindin chooses an extremely slow tempo. The strings gently roll out a carpet upon which the violin plays around and moves forward. Two horns intervene hesitantly, as though not wanting to disturb the beauty of the moment. One of them misses a note - a signal to some in the audience that it’s all right to cough again. But the orchestra doesn’t mind. All the musicians breathe together, each listening to the others. By this point, everyone understands what music is about.
Choking back tears
To the Iraqi musicians of the NYOI and their reinforcements from the German National Youth Orchestra, the final concert of the orchestral campus is not only the ambitious climax of a two week sojourn in Germany, but also farewell. Back in Baghdad, Arbil oder Kirkuk, they’ll have to stay in contact with their new friends by Facebook at first. But for the moment: hugs, tears choked back and boisterous celebration. At the reception in the Beethoven Hall’s south wing, politicians give speeches about cultural exchange and mutual understanding between East and West. The young people take photos, press towards the buffet and clink glasses with Arabella Steinbacher.
Later, sleep is far from anybody’s mind. A drum is set up and, together with a clarinet, pounds out a powerful Kurdish groove in the hall. The youths form a circle, dance, clap hands and sing into the wee hours of the morning. Arabella Steinbacher pulls out her pink Smartphone and films the scene. Before long, she’s in the middle of it.
A couple of hours later at the station, a few boys and girls from the National Youth Orchestra wait sleepily and with hangovers for their trains. "We stayed till 6:30," they say, "the Iraqis had to go to the airport an hour earlier." Clarinetist Mariwal Ismael is able to stay four more days. Before returning to his home in the Kurdish city of Arbil, he’ll join several other musicians from the NYOI and the BJO in the President's "Childrens' Festival" at Bonn’s Hammerschmidt Park. "Playing at this festival is a dream," he says.
After hugs and handshakes
Oft-cited ideals of cultural exchange, building bridges between continents and between the religions and ideologies represented in the orchestra were given clear expression during the musicians’ time in Bonn and at an exciting concert.
The National Youth Orchestra of Iraq has been invited to perform at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 2012, followed by performances in London and back in Iraq. But institutional support from the Iraqi government remains an unattained goal. For the time being, the orchestra will remain a vacation-time summer course.
What remains of the dream when school or university studies resume and the musicians are sometimes even forced to justify their hobby to family, friends or neighbors? Conductor Paul MacAlindin noted that, at the very least, the rehearsal period in Iraq and the successful first concert abroad will clearly make it safer for the young musicians to meet people and perform in their homeland. "We hope that with the campus concert, we’ve surprised the critics," he continued, "If any concert ever proved that music is about communication, this one did."
Author: Simon Tönies
Editor: Rick Fulker