Last concert!

Our last concert with the ESNCM symphony orchestra was in Hebron on the newly build Children's Center. It is so new that the people in the city hardly know it (and of course our driver didn't have an address for it and had to ask for directions), and the area around it is also only half build. Despite the playground with basket field in front it looks more like a congress center where grown-ups hold meeting about children, that a place for children.

The view from my spot in the orchestra. We're rehersing, probably tuning the strings here. The piano here is an upright and hence not so full of sound, so they had to take of the front. And our conductor spend a lot of time tuning it.

We played for a full hall of Arabs, and apparently we played the very first classical concert ever in Hebron. I wonder how many were there for the music and how many were there to say hello to each other and be seen. They behaved like they would during an Arabic concert; walking around and talking to each other and on the phone, or walking in and out of the hall. It was a bit disturbing, I'm used to a well-behaved audience sitting still and listening, but I enjoyed playing the music so much that I didn't care what the audience thought, and they were free to leave if they didn't like it. But they did like it, especially that we had the Palestinian girl on piano and that the Palestinian basoon player conducted Valse Triste, and the applause after Dvorak's Finale was resounding.

It was a bit sad when it was over, that was it for now. Many of us ran around with a piece of paper and asked for contact information for each other, and we had a group picture taken. I joined the teachers in Bethlehem at Casa Nova Restaurent for a drink and after-party, and that was a good way to gear down from an intense but wonderful week.

I wish the orchestra would meet regularily so I could continue to play in it, but I realise how difficult it is to gather students from Jerusalem and Bethlehem and Ramallah in the same place. If the rehersal is three hours and transport is one hour each way plus waiting at checkpoints, then it's a full day project each time.