Marc Thayer, director of the Education and Community Partnership Program, is working with American Voices, giving workshops and making music at the Summer Arts Academy in Erbil in northern Iraq. He’s sending in dispatches about his experiences for the SLSO blog.
I looked over his teaching and rehearsal schedule and find he’s engaged with students from 8:30 in the morning into the early evening. Marc is putting these posts together late at night before the computer room at his hotel is shut down at midnight.
Day 2
Nice breakfast buffet in hotel this morning: omelettes, fruit, tea, braided salty string cheese eaten with cucumbers, juice, sweet pastries, hard cheese, cereal, NO coffee. Maybe I have to ask for it but the tea is great.
Van left at 8am for 8:30am rehearsal. Sunny and beautiful views from the hotel, which is up on a hill overlooking the town. Takes a long time for everyone to go through metal detectors, get frisked, and have all their bags and cases searched. Every inch of my violin and violin case is searched by a guard in camouflage, guns nearby.
Chaos at the hall with almost two-hundred people speaking three or more languages. General meeting in big hall with everyone to discuss schedule. Everything has to be translated twice into Kurdish and Arabic, then split up into three orchestras.
Allegra [Klein, founder and executive director of Musicians for Harmony] and I work with Erbil orchestra first, set up chairs, folding stands. Finally start at 10:15, not 8:30. Forty-some strings and one shy flute player. Got through Bach Air in G, not bad reading and some good players.
Then had Suleimanya (Suly) Orchestra, about forty-five strings only, their conductor (really a composer who studied in Poland) lead the session and I played in the violin section. People are shy, but quickly warm up and smile if I approach them first. Got through one-and-a-half movements of Holberg Suite by Grieg. Sounds OK, but slow readers, very good players.
Lunch takes place in the giant foyer. This enormous government building was built for the Ministry of Culture and has two floors of close to twenty-five rooms each, which could be big enough for classrooms but will eventually become offices. According to John [Ferguson, executive director of American Voices] we couldn't use this building next year because by then it will be full of government workers. Rooms now are primarily empty. Apparently Erbil and other parts of Kurdistan are thriving, lots of investment taking place. We can see road construction and lots of buildings going up.
After the lunch of roast chicken, rice, fried ground meat in a pastry that looks like an egg roll, the “opening ceremony” takes place with all of us “faculty” sitting on stage. The Minister of Culture and his associates are there plus some folks from the US Embassy and US Compound in Erbil. We were given greetings from Condoleezza Rice and introductions were made all around. Kurdish Minister of Culture spoke about the Unity Orchestra and how music and art have the ability to bring people together to work in a productive environment. I've never seen a better example of this.
More rehearsals afterward with the orchestras, then we split into smaller chamber groups, more pandemonium. Werner [Englert, jazz saxophonist, brass and woodwind specialist from Freiberg, Germany] is teaching a jazz strings class for anyone that wants to go, but a group of twenty-something students from Suly want to play a Vivaldi Concerto grosso with the jazz strings. We don't have the music so I suggest a Mozart quartet instead, easy C major, and they'll get the music tomorrow: my new favorite word, “tomorrow.” I'll start using that at home more often: “That will happen ‘tomorrow.”’
The students all play very well but don't sight read as well and don't have any experience playing as an ensemble: looking and listening to each other and communicating without talking. No translator is there with me this time so it's really a lesson in non-verbal communication, and what a thrill to teach them their first Mozart quartet. A violist wasn't there at the moment so I play the part as much as I can on my violin with that clef, helping the cellos with their clef, and trying to say a few words now and then and looking at the mosque and guards outside the window.
After a while they can play the first and third movements. They want to play it in the concert if I'll play the viola part, but I don't think that's going to happen. Then we did some of “Spring” from Vivaldi's Four Seasons. That was relatively successful and then they all wanted to play my violin. Then they wanted me to play their violins and tell them what I think. What am I gonna say? Most of their instruments are not very good but they make them sound incredible and are fun people, very spirited, excited about playing and making music, learning more, having this opportunity. I can't believe how well they play with so few resources and teachers available. Nothing like hardships to make people value what they have and work hard to be better, to learn more. Great senses of humor. They all have digital cameras so one will take a picture with me and then they all have to take turns, some I don't even know. Many ask us to do chamber music with them, have a lesson, talk about this and that.
There is a violin maker/repairman in Suly, so I give them much of the bow hair and other items sent by Clemens Violins and they were very appreciative. I have to send a long-distance thanks to the Clemens for their generosity sending instruments, strings, books, and lots of parts: the only shop in St. Louis to respond to my requests. And many thanks to everyone that sent items and make donations to help with this. You can't believe how everything is appreciated.
A violinist in the Baghdad orchestra gave me a printed score for a piece for violin and piano, which he wrote. Looks pretty good, a three-page perpetual motion on Arabic themes, difficult -- he said he can't play it.
I heard some others playing Arabic and Kurdish music on violin. I have to get some of that on film. It's really incredible, quarter-tones, subtle sounds, slides, colors. I hope to learn some of it.
Most people are incredibly polite, courteous, and patient.
Outside on the streets there are lots of armed guards here and there but I think this is why it is very peaceful here. We don't feel threatened at all and I hope that we can explore the town Friday, the holy day, so we'll have the afternoon off.
Dinner at the hotel is outside in the garden -- I think the only grass in Erbil -- a large buffet, grilled food, interesting desserts. It appears foggy in the distance but it’s just dust. As it gets dark the lights on the mountains appear to be a zig-zagged road up the mountain. The night air is mild and a nice breeze carries through as we hear Arabic music in the background. Can't believe I'm here and couldn't be happier.
More later.
