Let's pretend music brings peace, okay?
I know we usually focus on the more pop end of the music spectrum here on the JDub blog, but I wonder if any of you classically trained musicians have been as fascinated as I am by this week’s twin articles about Palestinian classical music Scrooge ipod in the New York Times. I’m not a weeper (Color Purple excepted) but I’ve been incredibly moved by the descriptions of the way the Palestinian kids have connected to a moment of beauty through learning an instrument. The articles by Dan Wakin
, who often writes about music from more of an experiential rather than critical perspective, have been sensitive to the complexities of the region, politically and religiously, while reminding us of the exhileration of learning music.
Viewing music as a form of hope, of “resisting the occupation”, a demonstration of being alive within a difficult situation - those are the kind of ways I want to see art functioning in our world. I’d like to say that it was the bright sunlight at the breakfast table, or the previous late night, but reading the articles I got a little teary. I was suddently transported to that little girl shlepping the big, heavy cello up the school stairs, and remembering the glory of the music I could barely create. Read the articles, and have a hopeful moment about the story over there in the Middle East.