Koshary in Alexandria

While waiting in customs at the Cairo airport, a large ad for Mobinil, the telephone company, features a quote from President Obama: “We must educate our children to become like young Egyptian people.” Judging from the young people we met on our first day in Alexandria, he has a point.

I met CiH Deputy Director Kimball Gallagher at the airport and caught up for a bit before the other two participants, violist Kayleigh Miller and flutist Allie Deaver-Petchenik, arrived. We boarded a shuttle van for the 4-hour drive to Egypt’s second largest city, Alexandria, where we met Amr Abd El-Mottelib, the Founder and Director of Bridge, an NGO that exists “to implement creative and innovative projects to inspire people with new ideas that are involved and engaged in the Egyptian civil community...to exchange expertise and improve youth’s ability to interact with their society and culture, as well as with other cultures around the world.”

After checking into the Union Hotel, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, we headed to a cafe to meet other member of Bridge. Alexandria’s streets teem with honking cars and pedestrians, even late at night, and blinking neon lights turn night into day with their advertisements of both famous Western brands and local establishments, such as a juice stand offering fresh squeezed juice of orange and sugarcane, or a tiny restaurant packed with customers where we stopped for steaming plates of koshary, the mixture of pasta, rice, chickpeas, and tomato sauce from which our project here, “Musical Koshary,” takes its name and inspiration. 

The young members of Bridge are friendly, polite, enthusiastic, intelligent, and eager to be active agents in the development of the new society Egypt now has the opportunity to form. The general atmosphere, both among them and on the streets, seems relaxed, in contrast to the previous day, when, prior to the official announcement of presidential election results, Kimball told me “you could cut the air with a knife.” 

Along with some members of Bridge, we made our way through the crowded streets towards a club, its atmosphere supercharged with flashing lights, a throbbing beat, and tightly packed bodies, where we met some of the musicians with whom we would work this coming week. I accompanied one of them, a very tall bass guitarist, to Deja Vu, a nightclub where I heard a rock band featuring some of our musical partners, including an extraordinary drummer who plays in 20 different bands. “Why not a 21st?” I joked in amazement. At Deja Vu, young women who wore whatever they want mingled easily with men as they listened to Western-style rock music. Sipping a Stella, a local lager, I knew this would be an amazing week, hopefully resulting in musical compositions and performances offering as intriguing, diverse, and satisfying a mix of sounds as koshary offers a mixture of flavors. 

In Dubai

The security officer examining my belongings at Kabul airport kept looking at me as though he knew me from somewhere. Finally, it dawned on him: "You did the National Anthem on television!" he exclaimed in Dari, and then his friend came over, miming conducting motions with a smile.

Yesterday, in my capacity as an employee of Afghanistan National Institute of Music, I conducted the Afghan Youth Orchestra for President Karzai for the sixth time. When he came over to the orchestra to congratulate us, he asked, "Where's the German?" as I was already walking forward, so now he probably thinks I am German. He thanked us and shook my hand, and was then thrilled to learn about our plan to tour the USA. "Go to America, and show them that we also have an orchestra!" he encouraged the students in Dari.

Now, I am in Dubai: switching to my other capacity as Founder and Director of Cultures in Harmony, and also switching to a country with a very different political climate. If I could shake the President's hand in Afghanistan, I would have a hard time doing so in Egypt: only today were the results of the presidential election announced! Cultures in Harmony's Kimball Gallagher has already landed in Cairo, so I look forward to hearing from him tomorrow what the atmosphere was like as Egyptians celebrated the announcement of the results of their first democratic presidential election.

One thing is for certain: today, the universal language of music forged a positive connection between a beaming Afghan security guard and a certain American violinist/conductor who felt surprised and honored to be recognized. Tomorrow in Egypt, many more connections will begin, as surely as the contact between bow and string sets the air between performer and listener in motion.

Egypt and Tunisia project starts Monday

Sunday night, I take a 2.5-week vacation from my job as Violin and Viola Teacher at Afghanistan National Institute of Music to lead Cultures in Harmony's project, "Connecting Cultures through Counterpoint," in Egypt and Tunisia.

In Egypt, CiH will partner with the extraordinary NGO Bridge to put together a music festival called Musical Koshary in which we will create and then perform music in collaboration with Egyptian musicians. In Tunisia, we will partner with the fantastic Atlas Music Academy to teach young musicians and initiate a "musical caravan," which will be a tour of villages in which we will present community engagement concerts alongside our Tunisian musical partners in an affirmation of music's central role in social change.

I will be joined in Egypt by pianist Kimball Gallagher, CiH's Deputy Director; flutist Allie Deaver-Petchenik, who will blog about her experiences here; and violist Kayleigh Miller. In Tunisia, soprano Tiffany DuMouchelle and cellist Patrick McGuire will join the four of us. "Connecting Cultures through Counterpoint," which will also see CiH head to Pakistan in August, is underwritten by the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation and by the Embassy of the USA in Tunisia.

I will blog as frequently as I can about our work, so please check in as often as you can!

Conference in Washington

Dr. Cynthia Schneider, former US Ambassador to the Netherlands, a Distinguished Professor at Georgetown University, and a strong supporter of Cultures in Harmony, is co-organizing a conference with Derek  Goldman, Professor of Theatre and Performing Arts at Georgetown. They will  explore  the  connections  between  theater and politics,  and  try to  bridge  the  gap between  global  performance and  international affairs and  foreign policy.

The entire conference   (June 14-16)  will be broadcast on #NEWPLAY TV, an open source, live streaming project administered by HowlRound.com / Center for the Theater Commons.  People can watch by visiting newplaytv.info or on a smartphone through the mobile site at http://mobile.livestream.com/newplay, and can follow and use hash tag #newplay on Twitter to participate in discussion about the convening. Follow and post about the conference on #GlobalPerformance.   You can  follow  the  conference live  on  Thursday,  beginning  at 1:00 PM.  

Today Derek  Goldman,  Waleed Shamil (one of  our  five  visiting  Iraqi  artists) and I  had a  great  conversation on the  Kojo  Nnamdi show   on WAMU/NPR;  it previews many of the  issues  that  will  be raised in the conference.  Please listen  here, http://t.co/W2UskSAJ .  

Additional information  about the conference can be found at https://blogs.commons.georgetown.edu/performance-imagination-diplomacy/.