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The Week in Germany: Culture January 18, 2008 Berlin Opera Supremo Barenboim Brings Beethoven to the
West Bank, is Granted Honorary Palestinian Citizenship
The renowned Berlin-based opera director Daniel Barenboim recently showed his support for Palestine with a charity piano concert in the West Bank city of Ramallah. At the same time it emerged that he is the first Israeli to be granted honorary citizenship by the Palestinian Authority. Barenboim's Jan. 12 concert of Beethoven sonatas was held to benefit medical care for children in the Gaza Strip. It followed US President George W. Bush's own visit to Ramallah. Bush, the first US president to visit the West Bank city, spent Jan. 10 meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. His three-day visit to the region was conceived to "nudge the (peace) process forward". "I believe it's going to happen, that there will be a signed peace treaty by the time I leave office," Bush said as reported by Deutsche Welle at a joint press conference with Abbas. Barenboim meanwhile believes music can be a vehicle to bring peace to the region. "We will continue to play music for that," he said. As reported by the Associated Press, the world-famous pianist and conductor was given honorary Palestinian citizenship a year ago, but the move was not made public until last weekend, when a Palestinian lawmaker announced it following the Ramallah concert. Lawmaker Mustafa Barghouti said he lobbied Abbas to make Barenboim a citizen. Barenboim deserved a Palestinian passport, Barghouti said, because the conductor had shown "solidarity with Palestinians under the most difficult circumstances". "It was a nice gesture," Barenboim told the AP from Berlin. In Ramallah, Barenboim performed on a new grand piano an audience member from Berlin, who has since passed away, explicitly donated for his Ramallah concerts. Together with the late cultural scholar Edward Said, Barenboim in 1999 founded the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra ('An Orchestra for Peace'), with which he has also performed in Ramallah. It joins 90 musicians from Europe, Israel and a number of Arab countries. Barenboim lives in Berlin. He was born in Buenos Aires in 1942 to parents of Jewish-Russian descent and has since come to call Argentina, Israel, Europe and the United States home. His family moved to Israel when he was 10, and he holds citizenship in Argentina, Israel and Spain. From 1991 to 2006 Barenboim was Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, which has named him "honorary conductor for life". In 1992 he became general music director of the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, or Berlin State Opera, and in 2000 its Staatskapelle orchestra appointed him chief conductor for life. Barenboim has spoken out against Israeli settlements in the West Bank and is a strong supporter of Palestinian rights. In September 2007 he was nominated as a UN peace envoy by Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon. (TWIG/Deutsche Welle/AP/dpa) Links: Daniel Barenboim (official site) Barenboim Awarded a 2007 Goethe Medal (TWIG, March 30, 2007) Barenboim's Arab-Israeli Youth Orchestra to Serenade Annan at UN Send Off (TWIG, Dec. 15, 2006) Barenboim's orchestra plays for peace in Ramallah (The Guardian, August 2005) |
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