Article about Cairo art exhibit

On July 3, for our performance in Cairo, Egypt, we had the privilege of performing at the unique venue Darb 1718, which was also hosting a fascinating art exhibit about sexual harassment. I highly recommend this article about the exhibit. CiH condemns all forms of sexual harassment throughout the world, no matter the justification employed to rationalize them. 

Video of a Tunisian piece from yesterday's concert

 Please enjoy this video of CiH participants Kayleigh Miller and Kimball Gallagher performing "Fanfare for Piano and Viola" by the gifted young Tunisian composer Souhayl Guesmi at the Acropolium in Carthage, Tunisia, on July 15, 2012.

Mahmoud Morgan, 1989-2012

Cultures in Harmony is deeply saddened to learn of the untimely death from a heart attack of Mahmoud Morgan on July 12, 2012. Morgan, as everyone called him, was the international coordinator of the El Nozha chapter of Rotaract in Alexandria, Egypt. Cultures in Harmony worked with him to coordinate a composition and conducting workshop for Rotaract on June 30 in Alexandria. Here is a picture of him participating in a conducting activity at that workshop.

Morgan was a committed and compassionate man with a very bright future. We did not know him well, but are truly shocked and saddened. He was far too young to die. May he rest in peace, and may his family and friends find comfort in remembering his good deeds, his dedication to Egyptian society, and his work to foster peace and understanding between cultures.

Pictures from Egypt and Tunisia

I have now uploaded pictures from Egypt and Tunisia to our Flickr account. Enjoy!

Once again, we would like to thank the Embassy of the USA in Tunisia for funding our Tunisia project, and the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation for funding our work this year in Egypt, Tunisia, and Pakistan. Additionally, we would like to thank the many individuals who donated at benefit recitals and fund raising events held by this year's Cultures in Harmony participants, who were required to raise $1,000 towards the cost of their trip. Many participants raised even more than that!

Musical Caravan and protesters

On Tuesday, the Musical Caravan arrived in Jendouba. At the time, I did not pay much attention to the fact that many students were crammed into a small music school. We simply divided into different groups and either improvised together or rehearsed a few pieces we could play together, such as the Lounga Reyot Elsonbaty. 

We headed from there to the Montezeh, a beautiful garden where families gather to eat at the restaurant. I ordered a delicious mushroom pizza and a dish of strawberry and pistachio ice cream, which came decorated with various sauces and sweets. Closer to the concert time, more and more families strolled in, mothers in hijab, teenage girls in sparkly shirts, groups of boys, fathers holding the hands of their baby daughters. This was a perfect Musical Caravan venue: casual, and welcoming for those who did not realize they were attending a concert and might find that they enjoy it. The only thing unusual was the large and obvious police presence, which I wrongly assumed might be standard practice in post-revolutionary Tunisia. 

The concert included our eclectic mix of local musicians (including a violin-guitar duo who surprised us with American country music), our students from Atlas Music Academy who rode in with us, Cultures in Harmony, and Todor Petrov. The audience received it very well, with a few little kids asking for pictures with us afterwards. 

Only later did I learn that our master class was going to be at a Cultural Center, but was moved to the music school after some Salafists threatened to protest. They did not know Americans would be involved; it was enough for them that it was musical training. They feel that music is against their interpretation of religion. 

The next day I was doing an interview with Tunisia’s English language radio program when one of our partners from Atlas passed me a note. The town of Beni Mtir had just informed them that their annual festival would begin that night! I asked if Cultures in Harmony could be included, and she said we could try. I ran all over town, finding the CiH musicians and making sure they were on board, and then randomly introducing myself to people in hopes of connecting with the director of the festival. By luck, I met a man responsible for much of the activities at the cultural center, so he promised to introduce me to the festival director, who then approved our participation!

Throughout the afternoon, the square began to get far more crowded than usual. Typically, it contains no more than 3 or 4 people; now, it was bustling as a truck of produce arrived, another one bearing chairs, and another one with planks that workers soon began to assemble into a stage. The festival began with three old folkloric musicians, two playing huge drums that hung from their necks and the third using circular breathing to play continuously on a very loud, oboe-like instrument. 

I was like a kid at a carnival, particularly when the truck with the fancy, decorated horses arrived. I had to have a picture with the horses and another with the musicians. Soon after the horses arrived, the whole village followed the horses and the musicians down the switchback roads to a large grassy area just next to the reservoir. With the stunning view of the water and the mountains in the background, two men in costume proceeded to put on an incredible show with the horses, in which the horses stood on their hind legs, danced to the music, delicately balanced a single hoof on a trainer’s chest, and at one point (not part of their program), charged the crowd!

When we returned to the village square, Cultures in Harmony borrowed the sound system of the folkloric group that was to follow us. By this point, the entire village was assembled, as well as a tour group featuring volunteer English teachers from Senegal, Romania, Estonia, Korea, China, and other places. We played our Arabic and Turkish pieces, each of which was greeted with loud whistles and sustained applause. A little girl got up on stage to be closer to the action.

When we finished, I wandered around the square. Everyone smiled at me. A Tunisian rapper urged me to look up his stuff on YouTube. Several people thanked us for the gesture of respect we showed by stopping when the muezzin recited the call to prayer from the nearby mosque; one young person said, “We don’t all care about Islam that much, but it’s cool that you guys do.” 

Thursday’s Musical Caravan departure for Beja brought a flurry of goodbyes, since I would proceed from Beja to Tunis and then fly to Kabul via Dubai. I posed for photos with many students, and was deeply touched that when I headed for the bus, several of the teenage girls began to cry. I began to tear up myself. I will miss not only the students, but also the beautiful calm of Beni Mtir. 

We arrived late at the music school in Beja and gave classes to the students who had assembled. Somehow, I found myself working with students who had played oud for less than a month. Not really knowing what to tell them, I urged them to think about position, posture, and relaxation; to practice; and to bear in mind that improvement is a stepwise process and requires patience. Apparently they found this helpful. 

Our final musical caravan performance took place in a cultural garden similar to the one in Jendouba. This one in Beja also featured astonishingly good pizza. We enjoyed listening to some fantastic local guitarist/singer/songwriters we had just met at the workshop; Allie said one of them was just like John Mayer. 

Friday morning, in Tunis, I entertained a friend of mine by playing violin for her on the steps of the National Theater on the busy Avenue Bourgiba. Afterwards, everyone sitting on the steps burst into applause. A man had spoken to my friend in Arabic while I was playing. When I asked her what he said, she reported that he said that it’s nice to hear music before Ramadan. 

Was it a compliment? Or was he trying to make sure I knew how offensive the impromptu concert would have been if I had initiated it a week later? 

In either case, both “Musical Koshary” in Egypt and “Musical Caravan” in Tunisia have succeeded in standing in solidarity with Egyptian and Tunisian musicians at a critical moment of transition in their histories. Those Egyptians and Tunisians who are truly free will not allow the rights of musicians, women, minorities, or any other group to be limited. More than a few of my friends in these two countries look at the situation and describe themselves as fighters. After what I have seen, I believe that music will continue to be one of their strongest weapons.

I thank the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation and the Embassy of the USA in Tunisia for supporting “Connecting Cultures through Counterpoint,” the big project that encompasses these two projects and our work next month in Pakistan. Their willingness to share our vision facilitated innumerable connections over the past couple weeks while preserving and celebrating differences—something accomplished by the best counterpoint indeed.

Beni Mtir, Tunisia

The hum of cicadas is one of the only sounds you hear walking up a well-kept road to the center of Beni Mtir, an idyllic mountain hamlet in northwestern Tunisia. Colorful flowers, verdant grass, and trees line the path, and small white houses dot the switchback roads that fall away beneath you to the large reservoir shimmering far below, backed by lush forested mountains, the tail end of the mighty Atlas range that begins in Morocco. Downtown Beni Mtir consists of a small public square with a fountain, framed on one side by a hostel, restaurant, and conference facility; on another side by a convenience store stocked with a seemingly endless variety of cold, refreshing beverages; on another by a concert hall, and on the other by the forest. 

We reached Beni Mtir Thursday morning after a comfortable four-hour ride, together with our students, in an air-conditioned bus chartered by our wonderful partners in this venture, the Atlas Music Academy, which organized the week long summer music camp at which we are the professors.

After lunch and settling into our rooms, we held auditions at which every student played a little. Several students were terrified of these auditions, which was both amusing and unsettling: did they think we were there to be tough with them and scold them? We are only here for one week, and we are here to help and encourage, to build up, not tear down. 

The next day, we started the private lessons. Initially, it was a challenge to find a place to teach; I was outside in a garden overlooking the stunning view of the reservoir before moving indoors to a church built by the French and now converted into a nursery school. 

One centerpiece of this project was suggested by a Tunisian violinist I know from previous projects: she said we should form a “musical caravan” of Tunisian and American musicians that could go to rural communities and perform for people who do not hear a lot of concerts. I liked the idea so much that we even kept the name. Four students, a couple coordinators from Atlas, and the six Cultures in Harmony musicians loaded into a rented bus (our literal musical caravan) and headed off to El Kef.

El Kef is larger than Beni Mtir. We arrived at the cultural center to discover that instead of a one-hour concert, we would be staying for about five hours: a master class, then a concert, and then dinner! A little boy with chubby cheeks, smartly dressed in a black and white uniform, was already waiting in the lobby. He shook my hand with a grin, his other hand clutching a small violin. Soon, dozens of young musicians began to arrive: a few singers and pianists, several violinists and a cellist, and four teenage girls who play oud, the 11-string lute popular throughout North Africa, Turkey, and the Middle East. For the master class, we divided up: Kimball and Tiffany worked with the singers and pianists, Kayleigh and Patrick with the violinists and cellists, and Allie and I worked with the oud girls. We asked them to teach us a song, which they did. They have not yet learned improvisation, which is a very advanced art form in Arab music, so we encouraged them to develop their confidence with a two-note improvisation that would precede this piece. 

For the concert, a large and well-organized youth orchestra of violins, cello, ouds, keyboards, and percussion accompanied a few singers in popular (and powerfully amplified) songs. One of the singers was a 19-year-old girl who wore a short skirt and danced along as she sang; like many Tunisian women, she did not wear a headscarf. After their high-volume performance, Patrick started the Cultures in Harmony segment with some solo Bach. We followed our various chamber music selections with the piece Allie and I had put together with the four oud girls. 

All in all, it was a successful first outing of the Musical Caravan, and I was thrilled that Mr. Khaled Souissi from the US Embassy was able to come support us; the US Embassy is funding our trip to Tunisia. We all hope that for the next musical caravan, more non-musicians from the community will show up, but this first edition was nonetheless a success, since we were able to exchange ideas and collaborate with several dozen local musicians. Our evening ended with a lovely dinner at the local Hotel Sicca Veneria.

On Saturday, I led a workshop on the importance of doing outreach concerts. We gathered our students in the conference room and then Kayleigh and I performed the first bit of a Mozart Rondo using three different approaches, first asking the students to imagine that they knew nothing about music. First, we simply performed it. Second, I droned in a monotone about various biographical details of Mozart. Third, I used the “entry point” technique I learned as a fellow at The Academy. Then, I asked the students which technique they enjoyed the most. Of course, it was the third option.

Each Cultures in Harmony member shared outreach concert techniques and venues which they have found to be effective, and then I asked each student to name a place in their community, other than a concert hall, where they WILL organize an outreach concert. We got some interesting and some amusing responses: “a youth sports center,” “hospitals,” “an open place in the woods,” “my bedroom.” 

Then, I asked students why it is important to present such concerts in post-revolutionary Tunisia. I loved the responses. One student said, “Everyone needs a break from politics and stress.” Another student, our only young woman who wears a headscarf, said, “We have to remind each other that we are still Tunisian. Music can unite us.” 

That afternoon, I greatly enjoyed rehearsing Rhapsody Vardar by the great Bulgarian composer Pancho Vladigerov with the only Atlas faculty member who is not a Cultures in Harmony participant, the outstanding Bulgarian pianist Todor Petrov, who lives and teaches in Sousse, Tunisia. It fit together perfectly, so we added it to the evening concert.

At 5:30 p.m., we welcomed the Charges d’affaires of the Embassy of Poland for the unveiling of a statue of Chopin in the hostel’s lovely garden, chatting over incredibly delicious sweets and tall, cold glasses of mango juice, which offered relief from the unusually intense heatwave gripping the mountainous region around Beni Mtir this year.

We adjourned to the concert hall for the closing ceremony of the Atlas Dance Academy, enjoying mesmerizing performances by the Bollywood and hip hop groups. We brought the musical portion of the concert to a halt when a portion of the Koran was recited from the nearby mosque, resuming after the adhaan. 

Late at night, the dancers organized a party in the public square for their last night. A couple of our musicians helped the hip hop dance teacher set up speakers and connect a laptop to DJ. Teenaged girls in tank tops and skirts danced and laughed near teenaged boys. I let myself be pulled in, though my dancing looks like a marionette auditioning to become an air traffic controller. 

At one point, a beautiful young woman got the idea that we should include some of the men watching from the fountain at one side of the public square. Along with a few guys, including me, we approached the fountain. I was shocked to see that the reaction of the most of the men, upon being approached by such a stunningly attractive girl who wanted to dance with them, was not eagerness or shyness. No, it was disgust. They acted like they couldn’t bear for her to even touch them.

I thought little of it at the time, and went back to dancing. I had taken a short break inside when I was surprised to see most of our students walking back inside. I asked one why the party had stopped at midnight (incredibly early by Tunisian standards). She said that men who were here for some conference were staring at the girls in a rude way, looking them up and down in a way that made it clear that the men thought the girls’ outfits were inviting such stares. They were also making rude and intimidating comments. This particular girl is one of the bravest and most rebellious and liberal Tunisian girls I know, and yet she said, “If we stay out here, it could become dangerous for us.” 

I asked several girls if this kind of intimidation and rude comments have gotten worse since the revolution. “Yes,” they all responded. The same girl who had earlier invited the men to dance told me that she took part in the protests here that got significant media attention: to show extremists that they remain dedicated to maintaining a secular and educated society, hundreds of Tunisians gathered in public spaces at designated times to read books. She read poetry. She said that if they protested more vocally, the extremists would just beat them. 

I felt crestfallen. I wanted to tell those men that if young girls showing some skin and having fun bothered them, they could go inside wherever they were living. However, the battle had already been conceded. I hope that those Tunisians who read books and respect others’ liberty will win the war. Free Tunisians have the right to choose how they wish to live, but not the right to force others to follow their lifestyle and beliefs. 

Concerts in Egypt

The midday sun beat down relentlessly when we arrived at the soccer stadium of the University of Alexandria on Monday. A small tent near the bleachers provided the only shade. I squatted there to keep on eye on our equipment as the sound team we hired set up four speaker towers and a stage for the drum set. Their focus was admirable amidst the activity surrounding them: small kids ran around the bleachers, a track team of girls and boys circled the huge soccer field, young men in soccer uniforms trained for upcoming matches, a few tennis games occupied the court adjacent to the soccer stadium, and way on the other side of the field, children splashed about in an enormous public swimming pool. Between the tennis court and the bleachers, a catering team begun to fire up a large barbecue for the hamburgers and kofte that the American Councils for International Education would offer to those who came to the complex for their American Independence Day celebration, an event into which they had kindly incorporated our concert with less than 48 hours’ notice. 

By the time our sound team finished erecting 2 speaker towers in the bleachers and 2 on the track running around the field, as well as a stage, drumset, monitors, amplifiers, microphones, stands, and a jungle of cables snaking their way around the track, the sun had shifted so that the bleachers provided a measure of shade over that section of the track we would use as our stage. Coaches working with pint-sized track teams kindly kept their little charges at bay, getting them to walk in an orderly fashion around our equipment or going around it before resuming their run. Amr Abd El-Mottelib, our indefatigable coordinator  from Bridge who has become a great friend over the past week, found a spare soccer goal and set it up on the field behind the drum set in order to protect our equipment from stray balls. A former soccer player himself, he would keep a close watch on the field throughout our concert and keep stray soccer balls away from the equipment.

Our contact at the American Councils for International Education, a genial American who speaks fluent Arabic, told us that the match was between Egyptians and Americans. Therefore, I thought I would know when the game started by sensing a more tense, rowdy, or enthusiastic atmosphere among the large crowd (mostly Egyptian students and their families, with a few American students) that started assembling even before the planned 4 p.m. kick-off. 

To my surprise, it wasn’t until 4:45 p.m. that someone told me that the match had started only a little bit late. Looking more closely at the field, I realized that a game was indeed ongoing, but mercifully, the atmosphere in the stands had remained so relaxed and casual. When the game finished, the crowd got in line for their barbecue, and Bridge volunteers passed out programs. By this time, several people invited by Bridge for our concert only had turned up. I was touched that our lead singer had invited his mother, a friendly and matronly woman clad in black and wearing a simple hijab. 

It wasn’t long after we started that I realized everything had worked out for the best. Had we played at the Alexandria Opera House as originally planned, we would have performed only for those people who typically go to concerts. As it was, kids who had come to play at the sporting complex stopped by and stayed; afterwards, a little girl came up to Kayleigh, our violist, and me, just to give us a high five. Older women wearing hijabs, perhaps the mothers of some of the students playing soccer, had come for the match, but stayed for most of the concert.

Allowing our audience to choose the order of the pieces as though they were ordering food items from a restaurant menu proved to be an inspired stroke. They clearly loved calling out numbers, and it was no surprise that they “ordered” two popular Egyptian melodies, “Shed El Hezem” and “Fonoun,” near the beginning. Our versions proved to be a true fusion, with flute, violin, and viola playing the original and sentimental introduction to Fonoun before electric guitars entered to underpin an oud solo, after which the percussion got the groove going for our singer. We ended the arrangement with a super-charged rock-and-roll version of a single quick phrase from the introduction. 

The somewhat random order resulted in intriguing juxtapositions: a German rock song might be followed by a tango etude for flute by the Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla. We closed the concert by announcing that we were now “full” and would offer the audience a dessert: our version of the Turkish traditional Lounga Nihavend, kicked up a notch with a rocking drum set beat, solos consisting of improvised duets pairing up each American musician with an Egyptian counterpart (violin/oud, flute/sax, viola/voice, and guitars) and a wild accelerando to finish it off.

After we finished, we needed real food, so we headed off to Dahab for fettir, an incredibly delicious Egyptian dish similar to a stuffed pizza without sauce.

On Tuesday, we left Alexandria at 7 a.m. so that Kayleigh and Allie would have time to see the pyramids. Instead of going to the pyramids, I sat at a cafe in Giza and sipped Turkish coffee, chatting with a few Egyptian musicians who also preferred to avoid the sun and the commercialism. I asked one about the effect of the revolution on music. He said that some of his friends have left already. “Islamists here speak out against art and culture only indirectly.” 

I asked another of my musical colleagues if restrictions had been put in place against musicians. “Not yet,” was his ominous response. But he’s not entirely pessimistic. He believes that artists and writers will stand with musicians if they are threatened, and that the commercial importance of Egypt’s music industry throughout the Arab world will inoculate it against being dismantled. He showed me his card as a member of Egypt’s Musical Professional Syndicate, and I was pleased to learn that Egypt has a well-organized musicians union.

After Kayleigh and Allie returned, we went to the bus to finish the drive to Cairo. A friend showed us a scar on his arm: he was beaten during the revolution and fell into the path of a car rushing to escape from the smoke and tear gas. He had a piece of skin from his leg grafted onto his arm. 

Darb 1718 is a collection of beautiful, old-fashioned buildings in Old Cairo, all of which have been re-purposed as ateliers for sculptors, potters, tile painters, and more. In the art gallery, I saw an arresting and intense exhibit called “Enough” about sexual harassment. Memorable pieces featured slogans and reminded the viewer that Egypt’s revolution was led be women as well as men. The most unforgettable piece was four photographs of a partially naked woman’s body clothed in a burning paper dress. 

I wandered around the peaceful, grassy grounds, buying some beautiful tiles and clay figurines. As the sound engineer was setting up (he arrived late, without a drum set, and with not enough microphone stands), Amr called my attention to two thuggish men who he said had come from the government and would not leave unless we paid them 200 pounds (about $33). Everyone said that we would have to pay or the men would make things difficult for us. I told my friends I did not want to help perpetuate a corrupt system, and they said there was no point trying to resist.

My blood began to boil. I marched into the green room, grabbed my notebook, and borrowed a friend’s Blackberry to call the US Embassy. It was after hours, so I couldn’t reach anyone. I stalked back out into the grassy central area of Darb 1718, clutching the notebook and Blackberry, trying to calm myself down. 

I thought it might intimidate them if I wrote down everything they said and asked for identification. No luck. They slowed down to make sure I could write everything, and one showed me his ID: Mr. Ahmad Samy, representing the Musical Professional Syndicate. 

Suddenly, I was confused. I had found out about them today; one of my new Egyptian musician friends was a member. Weren’t they the musicians’ union? They explained that the fee was for a pension fund for old musicians. I started to feel bad about my anger. This is a fee I’d be happy to pay. 

I drew up a simple receipt for them to sign. That’s when the problems began again. They were not willing to sign. If I wanted receipts, they would be happy to generate official receipts, and even showed me the booklet of blank receipts, but the actual cost of the fee that needed to be paid into the pension fund was 1,000 pounds, not 200. 

Realization dawned. Perhaps there was an actual pension fund, but for far less than that fee, the two men would leave and pretend that no concert had taken place. This was a bribe. 

I would not pay. I threatened to report this incident to the US Embassy and to CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, and NBC. They just laughed. I tried to practically shove the paper into their hands. At one point, one of them briefly disappeared. When he returned, he and his companion laughed, took my receipt without signing it, and jokingly handed me a blank piece of paper in exchange. Apparently pleased with themselves, they spoke in Arabic to my friends and took off on their motorcycle. 

Without my knowledge, someone else had paid the bribe. Everyone could see I was too stubborn to do so, but they knew that without the bribe, the men could charge the “correct” fee or do any one of a number of things to make life more difficult for the venue or the musicians. I fumed, but there is little I can do beyond reporting it to the Embassy as I promised and also condemning, publicly here on the internet, Mr. Ahmad Samy of the Musical Professional Syndicate of the Arab Republic of Egypt as a corrupt man.

The concert began nearly two hours late because of time wasted due to the bribe and to the lateness of the sound engineer. Since there were not microphone stands, Allie and Kayleigh set up their fully charged iPads to act as music stands. A crowd of hip Egyptians and some Americans gathered, pulling beanbag chairs out of a storage area to set them up in the large, grassy, tear-drop-shaped median in the roundabout in front of the art gallery. I enjoyed playing with a tiny little girl named Natalie who was always smiling. She loved plucking the violin strings and trying to beat me up (fortunately not at the same time). Seeing her lifted my spirits: music had already made a connection I would never forget, in spite of our difficulties.

The various problems besetting the concert reached their comic apogee when I held Allie’s microphone during her performance of Piazzolla’s Tango Etude for solo flute. I was kneeling on the grass when gradually I started feeling like I was being electrocuted. It became very painful to hold the mike, now matter how I balanced it, so I had to drop it, stopping the performance. The sound engineer explained that the grass still had some moisture in it, so by kneeling on the grass while gripping the microphone, I electrocuted myself. 

Later I found out that a few audience members left because of the two-hour wait. However, those who stayed loved it. We did a great job and had fun playing with our Egyptian colleagues, and in my final solo in the classic Egyptian number Fonoun, I went totally crazy, my fingers screaming all over the violin and then ending the solo by gradually unwinding the lowest string to see how low it could go (I ended up sounding like a constipated cow). And all the troubles are worth it when I recall the site of two Egyptian guys dancing by their car while we played, or little Natalie’s face as she plucked violin strings for the first time.

We ended our time in Cairo with a visit to Cairo Jazz Club to support our drummer, who is the drummer in the band that was playing there. For anyone who still harbors stereotypes about what it means to live in a Muslim country, Cairo Jazz Club is one of the first places they should visit. In the same city as the revered, millennium old bastion of Islamic scholarship, Al Azhar University: a happening club where girls in skintight outfits that would raise an eyebrow on Fifth Avenue bump and gyrate to live music. Rather than attempt to impress one of the many beauties with my nonexistent dancing skills, I mainly spoke with a stunning young Egyptian woman who was doubtless far more interesting than the women on the dance floor. 

She showed me where she was beaten during the revolution. She used to work in tourism, but has been unemployed since the revolution caused tourism to plummet dramatically. Yet, she feels that the number of interesting bands has skyrocketed since the revolution: “People feel free to express themselves.” 

Today we arrived in Tunis, Tunisia, to begin our project here. Differences between the two countries were readily apparent, but revolution is just as much on the mind here as there. In both countries, I already sense a difference from my previous visits. In January 2009, in Alexandria, Egypt, I met with young people who told me how ardently they craved freedom. Today, in Tunisia, when I heard a few criticisms of the president, I knew people were not criticizing the absence of freedom, but how that freedom had been used. 

The difference is between a false feeling of powerlessness and a well-earned sense of empowerment, between the comforting simplicity of giving or following orders and the terrifying complexity of working together, between a status quo that never changes to one that lurches both forward and backward, often at the same time. 

I cannot predict the future; I can only observe the present. In Cultures in Harmony speeches, I frequently speak about how music reminds us of the importance of learning from one another. In the world today, Obama was right when he said, “We must educate our children to be like Egyptian young people.” Now is our time to learn from Egyptians and Tunisians. 

Concert venue for tomorrow

I'm thrilled that despite the unexpected cancelation of our two originally proposed venues in Egypt, we have now found replacements for both, thanks to the hard work of the US Embassy in Cairo and the American Center in Alexandria, both of which helped connect us to replacement venues that kindly agreed to host our concerts at the last minute.

Today, we perform at the soccer stadium in Alexandria, and tomorrow, at Darb 1718 in Cairo. I'm so excited to learn about Darb 1718 and feel honored that Cultures in Harmony will perform there with our Egyptian colleagues. It seems like one of the most exciting, dynamic, and happening venues for contemporary art and culture in Cairo. If you live in Cairo, please come! Darb 1718 has advertised our concert at their site. 

Last night, after rehearsal, we enjoyed a delectable meal at Teatro, a culture cafe here in Alexandria. The bram fattah farik with chicken (rice cooked with chicken, yogurt, and bread in a clay pot) was delicious, and the hot chocolate was probably the best I've ever had. The Teatro lived up to its reputation as a hub for Alexandria's music scene when more musicians occasionally dropped by our room; one young woman who plays violin in a rock band tried out a friend's viola. 

Musical Koshary gets hot; almost ready to serve!

I listened and listened to the video of Ala Baley, trying desperately to figure out how to write down this haunting Egyptian melody in musical notation. The key, I figured out. The melody, I more or less knew the notes; I just had to temporarily shut out the intricate ornamentation that gives much of the music's soul. But the rhythm? Where did it start? And how did the singer place the melody so precisely at such an awkward place in the meter, and in such a way as to make it all seem natural?

Cultures in Harmony projects can often be humbling like this. One reason I truly believe that music is the universal language is that it is the great equalizer. My years and years of training at the finest schools of Western classical music help me barely at all when it comes to mastering the nuances that imbue much older Egyptian music with a sense of tragic sentimentality. Over the past week, the four musicians of Cultures in Harmony have worked very hard with our Egyptian musical counterparts to come to a middle ground, a place where Western classical, Egyptian classical, German rock, American rock, and Turkish traditional music can thrive together. 

Our workshops, and indeed every aspect of our stay, has been incredibly well arranged and organized by the admirable NGO Bridge, founded and directed by a lanky, easy-going, funny, and intelligent young man named Amr Abd El-Mottelib, who has become a good friend and is a good representative of the Egyptian youth who have inspired the world. On Tuesday, we arrived to rehearse at Al Cabina, a very hip venue has grown, in two years' time, from a trash dump (literally) into the locus of Alexandria's flourishing music scene. The vibrant door on an alley not far from the corniche threading its way along the rocky shores of the Mediterranean is bedecked with a graffiti mural of a young woman and a swan. Inside, a narrow gravel entryway focuses the attention towards a small gap between buildings: Al Cabina is itself an even smaller alley, though one thoroughly cleaned up. A lending library stands off to one side, and an outdoor stage lies at the back (on Monday night when we first visited, the place was throbbing with music and people). We would spend our entire week here, rehearsing with an Egyptian saxophonist, oud player, a couple drummers, a couple guitarist, and a singer, making the air-conditioned basement studio into our musical home. 

After an initial jam based on the Turkish Lounga Nihavend, our drummer wanted us to make up our own rock song with a more interesting meter, so after he suggested a 9/8 beat (3 regular beats and one slightly longer beat in each measure), we co-created our own progressive rock song. I whipped out pencil and paper to jot down some harmonies, which I later wrote out on my laptop (this Cultures in Harmony contingent jokes that we are a traveling Apple Store, given all our laptops, iPads, iPhones, and iPods). 

We relaxed later at what used to be Pastroudis, an internationally famous restaurant that opened in 1923. They have now been taken over by the nationwide high-end chain Abou El Sid, but fortunately, the decor is very similar to the elegant, old world charm I remember from my 2009 visit to Pastroudis, and the menu has actually improved. We asked our Egyptian musical colleagues about what it was like to be here during the revolution. "A few days of struggle, and the rest: utopia!" They claimed that it had become easier for musicians since the revolution, but a few days later, we would find out that this is not always the case.

On Thursday, we visited the Village of Hope, a home for mentally disabled youth run by the incredibly admirable and hard-working Nada Thabet, who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. She was inspired to found the Village of Hope when, soon after the birth of her son many years ago, doctors told her that he was completely disabled and could not sense anything except through hearing. She did not give up, however, and now he is much better. We brought along our Egyptian colleagues and had an amazing time performing everything from Mozart to Egyptian favorites for them. In the more rhythmic songs, the children would get up and dance along, their faces alight with exuberance.

Afterwards, we headed to a beautiful lake and ate at Labourreya, a lunch that was one of the sublime gastronomic experiences of my life: fresh squeezed melon juice, baba ghanoush, tahini, flatbread, carrots, beets, fisherman's rice, fried calamari, crayfish, tajine of calamari, and huge fish, chosen before the meal from a tank where they were still swimming. 

On Friday, as we had finished rehearsing more and more songs without a clear potential concert order emerging, I suddenly realized that the order of the concert should reflect its name: Musical Koshary, a reference to the popular dish of pasta, rice, tomato sauce, and chickpeas. What if the audience could order the music from a menu, as though they were at a restaurant? My colleagues soon agreed, so instead of printing a "program," we will print a menu listing ingredients of our musical koshary (pieces of music that we have prepared) and ask the audience to order by number. It should be a fun and memorable way to promote the concept of a mutually respectful relationship between Egyptians and Americans as represented by our willingness to learn from one another's musical traditions.

Yet my euphoria at this cool concept was not to last. The Minister of Culture recently left his post as expected. No event can proceed at a major cultural venue without the Minister's signature, and in this interregnum before the newly-inaugurated President Mohamed Morsi names his cabinet, there is no one to sign the approval paper. We had planned to perform this Monday at the Opera House in Alexandria and on Tuesday at the one in Cairo. Now, we could not perform at either venue. 

After some frantic scrambling and considerable help from the American Center at Alexandria, we found a venue, an event, and even an audience: a celebration already planned by a language exchange program to take place at a local sports stadium. Given that the program has Egyptian students learning English and American students learning Arabic, they were thrilled to be able to incorporate into their celebration a musical concert that aligns with their mission. We will have to set up a sound system and stage that we rent ourselves, but we are guaranteed an audience of several hundred, so we are very relieved that the concert can proceed.

Socializing with our friends has provided many extraordinary first-hand accounts of the revolution. I had read that groups of youth had formed to protect their streets from looters released from prison by the previous regime to cause chaos. Now I have met them, and been astounded by their bravery at protecting their neighborhoods and families. One friend, a member of Rotaract (associated with Rotary International), told me that while guarding his street, he was given bad food that sent him to bed for three days, and he still wonders if that was an insidious attempt by the regime to weaken those who were resisting them. 

We visited Rotaract yesterday to offer a workshop to its members in which, over the space of two hours, we created and conducted musical compositions and then reflected on the lessons that the process offers to young leaders such as the members of Rotaract. Hopefully the democratic process by which we shaped the melodies and motives generated for the compositions will stay with them, but truth be told, Egyptians do not need lessons in how to work together. As President Obama said in the quote emblazoned on every ad for Mobinil, "We must educate our children to become like young Egyptian people."

And in music, we musicians can learn from the sense of freedom and effortless access to powerful emotional expression offered by the best Egyptian musicians. My friend in Rotaract gave me a CD of Egyptian music made famous during the revolution, and I look forward to listening to it in detail. 

And, as we prepare for Monday's big concert and then have to leave this astonishing, complex country on Wednesday, I will continue to try to figure out that song Ala Baley...not figuring out how to trap its aching melody in the five-barred prison of Western notation, but how to connect with the hearts of humanity as easily as that Egyptian singer's voice does, through various technological media and across three decades during which her society changed forever.