[f_minor] Quiet in Radioland

[Robert Merkin]

Don't know anything about Said's link with GG, but after a chance hotel lobby encounter with the Argentine-Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim, Said (a talented pianist) and Barenboim established the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in 1999. The youth orchestra recruits and trains Palestinian and Israeli kids, and performs concerts when and where government and military restrictions permit. 

To express it charitably, it's extraordinarily difficult, unpleasant, sometimes even hazardous to transport and assemble a hundred kids and their adult music teachers from the many different religions and ethnicities in this hyperpolarized region for a unified artistic and educational goal. To attend a Divan concert, you can expect to encounter more military checkpoints, assault weapons and war-zone barriers than at an evening at Concertgebouw or Carnegie Hall.

Barenboim and Said didn't care. When they said "The show must go on!", they weren't kidding.

The first conclusion most reach from a superficial "CNN" reading of the Middle East is that this is a permanent Slough of Hopelessness. 

But a closer look shows an unbroken history of famous, beloved and idealistic loonies from all the faiths, nationalities and ethnicities who refuse to surrender to the hatred and hostility that appear to be The Official Program.

In Said and Barenboim, we have a couple of loonies bringing Peace to the Middle East to a background of children making beautiful music.

A good Yom Kippur to all! At Ramadan's end, I wished Eid Mubarak to all 

http://vleeptronz.blogspot.com/2012/08/vleeptron-wishes-all-eid-mubarak-with.html

And every Christmas I gripe about how hard it is for pilgrims to visit Bethlehem. This is just no way to celebrate the Prince of Peace's birthday.

Bob
Massachusetts USA



  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: maryellen jensen 
  To: f_minor at glenngould.org 
  Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2012 9:27 PM
  Subject: Re: [f_minor] Quiet in Radioland



  No one else has mentioned it: Edward Said died on September 25th, 2003 in NYC. 

  Edward Said was a staunch defender of Gould. It seems impossible that there exists
  no correspondence between the two men but there is none. 


  Mary Jensen

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