Music from a war zone


Coverage elsewhere of the interruption of yesterday's Jerusalem Quartet concert at London's Wigmore Hall by pro-Palestinian demonstrators. Not only should the Israelis be asking why such protests happen, they should also be asking why support for the protesters is increasing. Header image is the CD of Palestinian classical music recorded in Gaza in 2006 by Ad Vitam Records, a company that believes in solving problems by working together rather than by disrupting concerts or by targetted assassinations.

In my profile of Ad Vitam last year I quoted the company's credo that their recordings should "build bridges of expectations, hope and trust". 40% of the sales revenue from the Gaza CD goes directly to the musicians in Gaza whose livelihood is threatened by the current political situation there. Unlike the Jerusalem Quartet the Ensemble musical de Palestine does not have an exclusive recording contract with Harmonia Mundi nor did they receive support from the BBC via the BBC New Generation artist scheme. As Ad Vitam say about the Ensemble musical de Palestine:
The best way to get to know a new music is to trust those who play, not to make money. Those musicians seem to play to survive.
And yes, there are two sides to any argument.

My copy of the Gaza CD was bought online. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Comments

Pliable said…
There is some insightful thinking about this difficult topic here -

http://notesfromadefeatist.blogspot.com/2010/03/wild-rumpus.html
8:11 pm
Pliable said…
An interesting resource here -

http://joe-sacco.mondomix.com/en/itw5596.htm

Mondomix has a lot of interesting material -

http://www.mondomix.com/
9:03 am
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