Home

The Charism of Sion

The Family of Sion

Our History

News

Links

Music from Neve Shalom / Wahat al - Salam

Shabbat B'Har/B'chukkotay - 20th May, 2006

.........I want to end by illustrating what I mean by being open both to history and to the inexpressible presence of God. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was lucky enough to be in Israel staying at the Arab-Jewish village, Neve Shalom - Wahat-Al-Salaam near the Latrun Monastery.

One evening, we were treated to a concert by a group of young Palestinian and Jewish musicians, members of the Arab-Jewish Youth Orchestra. There were the usual classical western instruments, violin, cello, flute and so on. But there were instruments representing the eastern tradition of music, such as the oud which brought a different timbre and colour into the orchestra.

The young Arab conductor led us through a number of unfamiliar modern pieces and then introduced us to a Chopin Prelude which he had arranged himself. Not only would we hear the prelude played by the variety of instruments, we were told in the introduction to this piece, but half through, the players fall silent, while one by one the different instrumentalists would improvise. I felt my purist, western, musical hackles rise and my prejudices leap to the fore. What on earth was this orchestra going to do this Prelude? How can I describe what took place during that piece?

It began gently, meditatively and yes, differently as the instruments found a way of interpreting the music. And then, as explained, the music fell silent and out of the silence emerged the soft, plaintive voice of the oud, and then the violin, and then a flute - and we were in a context that was no longer the refined nineteenth century French world of the composer, but of two peoples longing to express their voices, yearning to be heard by the others in the orchestra, and creating a fusion of east and west, of Arab and Jewish.