Conductor Paul MacAlindin and a soloist

As I promised in my last entry, I did an interview over the Internet with NYOI’s musical director Paul MacAlindin, from Scotland and now living in Cologne, Germany.

– Mr. MacAlindin, how has the NYOI’s music improved academically since the orchestra’s founding?
Paul MacAlindin: Arab, Kurdish and classical music have systems that need to be internalized before you can really connect your soul with sound. The war and a generally negative perception of the arts has kept people from learning those systems. However, no one can prevent that part of the human brain which exists only to make music from finding a way to express itself. So young Iraqis have found their way intuitively to making music through difficult times. Music has become a comfort, a barrier against the chaos and violence. The Internet has replaced teachers.

NYOI brings teachers into Iraq to coach young players. We do this in a very intense course, which shows players what’s possible when they are given a chance. Those teachers who left Iraq during the invasion may never come back, but we have given those that are courageous enough to stay hope that they can get real support, now and in future.

Sustained conflict conditions people to be helpless, afraid and focused on survival, even when war is over. NYOI players and friends have set up their own projects to start challenging that mentality, and learn empowerment. I believe that some of the current good practice in Iraq is directly and indirectly inspired by NYOI courses. NYOI players are already teaching what they’ve learnt from our tutors.

– What needs to be done or to be changed in the Iraqi musical schools?

Simply, a respectful dialogue with musicians outside Iraq; perhaps allowing a young teacher to come and work there for 6 months, or a visiting ensemble to be allowed to do a short residency.  Fundamentally, music brings people together. That can only happen when people feel safe enough to do so, and when they do, they create demand for more performances and better teaching.

Only then can musicians discuss what they need, and who to work with. At the heart of every musician’s success is mobility, and whether going to the next village or the next continent, is absolutely necessary.

Paul MacAlindin and I in Arbil

– What sounds strange when you try to make room for classical music inside people’s minds in the East? And how difficult is that at this moment?

If we’re discussing orchestral music, that’s easy because it’s already everywhere: film sound tracks, advertisements, hotel foyers, pop music all over the world. Kurdish and Arab music continually mixes clarinets, violins, cellos, flutes with traditional instruments, creating mixed orchestras. Do people really want to listen to a whole concert of orchestral music in silence? A lot of people in the West can’t even do that. But again, live music of all kinds, traditional or orchestral, brings people together, and doing so again and again creates the fabric of society, creating emotions and ideas instead of conflict.

– What you would like to say in closing?

A friend of mine, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, who wrote NYOI a piece last year, said that a place doesn’t really exist if no one is performing music about it. The choice is to continue living in fear, half alive, or to allow your home to flourish with music.

Click here to head to the NYOI YouTube Channel.

Rehearsing with the NYOI at the Beethovenfest in Bonn

After the National Youth Orchestra of Iraq was founded by 17-year-old female Iraqi pianist Zuhal Sultan in 2009, we saw much better progress among Iraq’s young musicians. Every year the Orchestra has its own courses in the summers, usually in July or August, with many great orchestral tutors coming from all over the world to Kurdistan. The orchestra usually contains 45 to 50 players – Kurds and Arabs – without restricting itself to any single nationality, religion or culture. It’s hard to bring this many different groups together in one country, but on stage, the orchestra could do just that. That is the power of music, which can bring people together despite their differences.

The musicians come from all over Iraq. They are accepted after applying and doing their auditions via the Internet. Fortunately there’s not any difference between males and females. Everybody between the age of 14 to 30 can apply. When they get together, you see happy faces and feel a great sense of hope from them. They forget all the challenges they’ve gone through to get to this point.

The orchestra is like a very good musical school for the young Iraqi musicians who’re able to apply every year. However, it does take approximately a month out of the year of their time to apply. And there’s no rule that they have to stop improving their musical abilities even if they aren’t chosen by the orchestra’s musical director. They’ll just try to make more progress for next year.

Since it was founded, the orchestra has performed every year in various cities across Kurdistan. Last year, they even had the chance to travel abroad to Germany and participate in the Beethovenfest, Bonn (www.beethovenfest.de). That was a good opportunity and became a great turning point for the orchestra, introducing it to the world at large. In my view, it led some to have a different identification with Iraq and showed another beautiful side of Iraq to the world. Hopefully we will have many other opportunities to travel abroad as an orchestra. At the moment, we are preparing to travel to the UK and take part in Edinburgh Festival Fringe (www.edfringe.com).

The orchestra provides many different things for the musicians during rehearsals. One of the most interesting things for me are the conducting classes, presented by the orchestra’s musical director Paul MacAlindin. He’s a Scottish conductor who has lived in Cologne for about ten years, and he has worked with the orchestra since the beginning. I’ll do an interview with him for a blog entry soon, because I want you to know what a Western musician thinks about the orchestra and its effectiveness.

Grabbing a snack together in Arbil

For me personally, the orchestra was a gateway to great opportunities. I applied in the second year after it was started – not the first. After I went to some conducting classes, I got some good knowledge on conducting. So after that I created a much bigger orchestra in my town from the students of the Ranya Institute of Fine Arts. It’s been very great for me that I can be a member of such a great orchestra, and meanwhile I can give the useful knowledge I got from it to the students.

Every year the orchestra gets more and more applicants. For instance, the first year the orchestra had 5 members from my town. In the second year, 10 members. The third year brought 12 members, and this year is also 12 members. It obviously has good potential.

Here is a link: