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Jeff Spurgeon: Now more than ever, we could all use a little hope. At this moment that hope comes to us in the form of the Galilee Chamber Orchestra with conductor Saleem Ashkar, and violinist Joshua Bell. The Galilee Chamber Orchestra is the first professional orchestra of both Arab and Jewish musicians based in Israel. They originally planned to be at Carnegie Hall in December of 2020, but that like so many other things was canceled. This concert is their much-delayed New York debut. Backstage at Carnegie Hall, I'm Jeff Spurgeon, and beside me is John Schaefer.
John Schaefer: Beside me are members of the Galilee Chamber Orchestra. You can hear them tuning and milling about for a program that will span the centuries 18th, 19th, and 21st-century music. Symphonies by Haydn and Beethoven, a concerto by Max Bruch some would say, "The Concerto by Max Bruch.
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John Schaefer: Tonight is also the Annual Isaac Stern Memorial Concert, which acknowledges all the many contributions of that legendary violinist including his dedication in saving Carnegie Hall. It was Isaac Stern, who led the campaign to keep Carnegie Hall from the wrecking ball back in the 1960s. It's fitting that our soloist tonight in the Bruch Violin Concerto is Joshua Bell because he has his own connection to Isaac Stern.
Joshua Bell: Of course, a huge fan of Isaac Stern. I got to meet him and even play chamber music with him and he saved Carnegie Hall. He was a special violinist and human being.
Jeff Spurgeon: This is Joshua Bell's first time working with the Galilee Chamber Orchestra, and having just finished a big tour with the orchestra that he runs these days, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. Joshua Bell wasn't so sure that he could fit this concert into his schedule.
Joshua Bell: At first, when I was asked, I thought, "Oh, no, I can't. There’s no way. I might only-- three-day break." I understood what this orchestra is all about and I thought, “I've just got to make this work because this is very special.” They're bringing together these musicians from the Arab Israeli world where there’s always being-- we associate that with the strife and this is such a great example of how music transcends everything, and it's such a great vehicle for peace and understanding among humans. Timing-wise what's going on in the world right now it's even more important that people see that there are answers to troubles that don't need war to answer.
John Schaefer: It is Joshua Bell's first time playing with the Galilee Chamber Orchestra, but it didn't take too long at their first rehearsal yesterday, apparently, for them to find their musical groove.
Joshua Bell: We seem to have similar visions of the piece and he's a very good musician. We're breathing together, it feels very natural. I was very pleased at the first rehearsal and the orchestra it's just a wonderful group. A few of them I've known from before, one or two from the Israel Philharmonic, who I just saw in October in Tel Aviv, but many new people for me-- it's very special to be playing with this orchestra of this unique combination of musicians.
Jeff Spurgeon: Joshua Bell, the conductor of the Galilee Chamber Orchestra, and its artistic director is Saleem Ashkar. He gave us a little background on how the roots of this orchestra began to grow back in Israel several decades ago.
Saleem Ashkar: The first mission we had, my brother and myself, including my parents, was to give to the city of Nazareth the experience that we gathered in educating classical musicians. When we started our family to play classical music there was hardly any teachers, any role models. That was the first impulse to give something to the community in knowledge and experience that we gathered.
Jeff Spurgeon: That's the conductor, Saleem Ashkar. When he mentioned his brother, that's Nabeel Abboud-Ashkar, who was a violinist in the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, an ensemble founded by Daniel Barenboim, the conductor, and the late writer Edward Said that had a similar mission to the Galilee Chamber Orchestra. Nabeel Abboud-Ashkar wanted to create opportunities specifically for musicians in the family's hometown of Nazareth, an Israeli city with a majority Arab population.
He went to Daniel Barenboim, and with his help founded the Barenboim-Said conservatory in Nazareth. The name is a bit of a mouthful, he later renamed it to Polyphony, and the Galilee Chamber Orchestra grew out of Polyphony in 2012. That is the orchestra that we are hearing tonight live on the Carnegie Hall stage.
John Schaefer: We asked Saleem Ashkar to tell us a little bit more about the makeup of this orchestra.
Saleem Ashkar: We started with two Arabic kids, basically Jewish Israeli orchestra, and now we are almost 45%. That's the real measure of success, and that's the result of real education.
Jeff Spurgeon: The voice of Saleem Ashkar, the artistic director, conductor of tonight's performances at Carnegie Hall by the Galilee Chamber Orchestra. Ashkar is also a pianist, a real Beethoven guy, too. He has played in Carnegie Hall, but he told us that he's pretty sure that tonight is the first time that most if not all of the rest of the orchestra is on the stage at Carnegie Hall for the first time. At the rehearsal yesterday he tried to get them ready for this very heady experience.
Saleem Ashkar: I'm trying to prepare them for the sense of all that will descend on them once they're sitting on stage so that they meditate on the right things. So that they find their center so that they channel that energy in the right way, which is towards the music, and I have a good feeling.
John Schaefer: He has a good feeling there might be some butterflies amongst the orchestra members.
Jeff Spurgeon: It's a young orchestra. These people are just feet away from us, and they are young people. That's not just the curse of time on us, John. They're really—
John Schaefer: Oh, that certainly is a part of it.
Jeff Spurgeon: They are young musicians. They're milling about backstage as we get ready for the performance. We think we're just a minute or two away from taking the stage. We'll start this concert with Haydn, and then we'll end it with a Beethoven symphony that-- those two flow together very nicely.
John Schaefer: They booked the concert really well. We've been here a lot, Jeff, and very often we find ourselves sort of scrunched in this corner, surrounded by members of the orchestra. It's usually you get a sense of the routine, the wonderful routine of music making preparing to go out on this stage to make music. You're right, it's a very young orchestra, and there's a kind of energy in the room right now that is a little bit different from-- when the Philadelphia Orchestra comes here, this is like a second home. Whereas this is like walking into someone else's home as an honored guest.
Jeff Spurgeon: Exactly. The Galilee Chamber Orchestra is on stage. There are 42 or 43 musicians on the roster of this orchestra. First professional orchestra based in Israel made up of Arab and Jewish musicians. Their Carnegie Hall debut delayed by about 15 months. They were supposed to be here in December of 2020.
John Schaefer: They are going to make their Carnegie Hall debut with a symphony by Haydn. The Symphony No. 59, which is popularly known as the Fire Symphony, not a name that Haydn gave to the work. Some years after he wrote this symphony, a couple of movements were, let's say borrowed to be used as incidental music for a play called The Conflagration. This was in the home of Princess Esterhazy, where Haydn was employed. The name stuck and to this day it is the Fire Symphony by Haydn. Our conductor Saleem Ashkar is now at center stage. Applause from the audience. He turns to face the Galilee Chamber Orchestra and will begin this Carnegie Hall concert with Haydn's Fire Symphony.
[MUSIC - Symphony No. 59 by Joseph Haydn] [applause]
Jeff Spurgeon: The Galilee Chamber Orchestra making their first ever appearance in Carnegie Hall with the performance you've just heard of Haydn Symphony No. 59. The Galilee Chamber Orchestra, the first professional orchestra in Israel made up of Jewish and Arab musicians together. Their Carnegie Hall debut happening right now 15 months after it was originally scheduled, pandemic delayed. Just offstage now, the music director, Saleem Ashkar, and conductor. Backstage, I'm Jeff Spurgeon, and John Schaefer's here too.
John Schaefer: The Haydn Symphony No. 59 known as the Fire Symphony, typical Haydn exuberance especially in the first and fourth movements.
Jeff Spurgeon: Bringing together those themes for one more walk around the park before he ties the bow on the package in the wonderful and typical Haydn fashion.
John Schaefer: A similar thing happens in the next work, the Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1, where thematic material is recast and reinvented as the piece goes along. That work is for many people, the work by Max Bruch, the German composer. The Scottish fantasy gets some play, but this first violin concerto by Bruch is a work that is hugely popular, a cornerstone of the violin repertoire. For our soloist tonight, Joshua Bell, it is a very special piece.
Joshua Bell: I have so many memories and connections to this piece. It was one of the first violin concertos I studied when I was 12 years old with my teacher Josef Gingold, just when I started studying with him and he was a very special person in my life. I made my Carnegie Hall debut in 1985 with this piece, Bruch concerto with the St. Louis Symphony and Leonard Slatkin. Here I am back doing it again, how many-- I don't know, 37 years later. [laughs] It's special to be doing that again and it's just an incredible piece. It's one of the great four as Joachim referred to it. Joachim for whom Brahms wrote his concerto. He revered the piece alongside Mendelssohn, Beethoven, and Brahms.
Jeff Spurgeon: We are just a moment away from the stage door opening once again, and our conductor and soloist appearing on the stage, Joshua Bell here to play this violin concerto at Carnegie Hall's Annual Isaac Stern Memorial Concert. There's again, a nice juxtaposition of artists here for-- spent some time in his youth working a little bit with Isaac Stern, and of course, Stern was so important to the history of this institution, this hall. Might not be here if it were not for Isaac Stern's work in preserving it and bringing it into now the 21st century.
John Schaefer: The applause begins as the audience spies Joshua Bell and Saleem Ashkar walking out on stage with the Galilee Chamber Orchestra. Joshua Bell taking up his position in front of the orchestra, and now Saleem Ashkar back on the podium to perform the Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor by Max Bruch from Carnegie Hall Live.
[applause]
Jeff Spurgeon: An encore, a small duet for violinist Shostakovich offered by Joshua Bell and Galilee Chamber Orchestra concertmaster Guy Figer. As a tribute to those who suffer as Joshua Bell said, on the other side of the world this day.
John Schaefer: We should probably mention the Galilee Chamber Orchestra has two concertmasters, one Israeli, one Arab. In the first half of the show, as you said, Guy Figer was serving in the concertmaster role the first of the first violinists in the orchestra. In the second half of the concert, Yamen Saadi will take on that role, but it was Guy who got to perform that Shostakovich duet with Joshua Bell, who in introducing it, also alluded to the fact that this is the Isaac Stern Memorial Concert, an annual happening here at Carnegie Hall. Appropriate that it was Joshua Bell who was our featured soloist because there are few classical musicians who have the stature in the public eye that Joshua Bell has. Equivalent roughly to where Isaac Stern stood in the public consciousness some 40, 50 years ago.
Jeff Spurgeon: Bell has expanded his own work, becoming a conductor now and quite successfully so with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields in London. Bell's work continues around the world and it really is a wonderful thing that he was here for this concert and his support, the Carnegie Hall debut of the Galilee Chamber Orchestra.
John Schaefer: More of this concert from Carnegie Hall coming up in the second half of this program, Beethoven's Symphony, No. 1. I'm John Schaffer, and this is Carnegie Hall Live.
[music]
We return now to our broadcast of the Galilee Chamber Orchestra from Carnegie Hall. I'm John Schaffer, joined by my co-host Jeff Spurgeon backstage at this esteemed venue.
Jeff Spurgeon: We've reached intermission of this concert, and we're going to have a conversation with one of the orchestra members in just a moment.
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John Schaefer: I'm John Schaffer, alongside Jeff Spurgeon. Joining us just off stage here at Carnegie Hall is Marie Salah from the Galilee Chamber Orchestra. Marie, welcome.
Marie Salah: Thank you.
John Schaefer: Are you from Nazareth? Is everybody in the Galilee Chamber Orchestra from Nazareth or those immediate environs?
Marie Salah: No. Some of us are from Nazareth. Some of us are from different parts of the country.
Jeff Spurgeon: Then do you have a consciousness about the mission of this orchestra that you walk around with? It's a special thing.
Marie Salah: It's hard to think of it as a task. It just happens and that's the beauty of it. It just happens. You just feel the thing and you feel that everybody is unified with the passion for music and the passion for what we're doing.
John Schaefer: We're speaking with Marie Salah, one of the violist of the Galilee Chamber Orchestra. She has a whole ‘nother half of music to get through. Marie, thank you so much for stopping by.
Marie Salah: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Jeff Spurgeon: We really appreciate you speaking with us. Yes, we're at intermission of this concert coming to you from Carnegie Hall live. The Carnegie Hall debut delayed 15 months by the pandemic, but they're here now. The Galilee Chamber Orchestra, the first professional orchestra in Israel made up of Arab and Jewish musicians. They're here. They've brought us Haydn so far. The Max Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1 with soloist Joshua Bell. In the second half of the program, we will hear a Beethoven Symphony as well.
John Schaefer: We're bracketing the concert with music from the late classical early romantic periods because it is the Beethoven Symphony No.1, a transitional work that we'll be hearing in the second half. All of that is still to come. Before we get too far away from our soloist tonight, Joshua Bell, let's hear a little bit of the renowned violinist recorded live in our own WQXR Greene Space downtown performing the Brahms Violin Sonata No. 3, with pianist Jeremy Denk.
[MUSIC - Violin Sonata No. 3 by Johannes Brahms]
Jeff Spurgeon: Music of Brahms, the Violin Sonata No. 3. A portion of a performance that was given by Joshua Bell, the soloist you've heard tonight from Carnegie Hall Live. Our way to bring you a little bit more music during the intermission of this Carnegie Hall concert, the debut of the Galilee Chamber Orchestra making their first appearance in Carnegie Hall ever.
An orchestra from Israel scheduled to have been here in December of 2020, pandemic delayed, but here they are tonight making their Carnegie Hall debut. Just a couple of quick stage changes before we hear Beethoven's Symphony No.1. Saleem Ashkar is a Beethoven pianist, and Beethoven concerto player, and a Beethoven conductor. "How,” we asked him, “Does it all fit together in all these influences when you come to conducting a symphony?”
Saleem Ashkar: It goes in both ways when I'm doing the symphonic work, or the auditorium, or when I play bit of a leader. I really believe in this totality where everything you do is actually coming out of the same ideals and goes back into the same thought process. It's in a way, of course, different challenges, different technical problems, different ways of communication, but in essence, the same.
Jeff Spurgeon: Saleem Ashkar, the music director and conductor of the Galilee Chamber Orchestra on bringing Beethoven's Symphony No. 1 to Carnegie Hall. I love the beginning of this Symphony, John. It sounds like the Symphony walked into the wrong room. Where I'm supposed to be? You don't quite know what key it's in. It's really a wonderful beginning.
John Schaefer: Yes, and a literal transition from the 18th century to the 19th because it was premiered in 1800, but a transitional piece for Beethoven as well. It's his first symphony. You can already hear elements of what we'll hear later in this Symphony No. 1 from Carnegie Hall Live.
MUSIC - Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 MUSIC - Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 MUSIC - Beethoven: Symphony No. 1
[applause]
Jeff Spurgeon: From Carnegie Hall live, the Galilee Chamber Orchestra from Israel in their New York and Carnegie Hall debut with a performance of the Symphony No. 1 of Beethoven and their music director and conductor Saleem Ashkar. A wonderful rendition as the audience indicated with deeply involved applause. You hear that ovation continuing now with the orchestra on its feet, Maestro Ashkar bowing.
John Schaefer: The standing ovation, actually-
Jeff Spurgeon: Indeed.
John Schaefer: -for the Galilee Chamber Orchestra. A very well-received Carnegie Hall and New York debut for this first professional ensemble based in Israel to be comprised of about equal numbers of Arab and Jewish musicians. Saleem Ashkar's back out center stage, acknowledging the different sections of the Galilee Chamber Orchestra. The Symphony No. 1 is the perfect piece for an ensemble of this size. It's--
Jeff Spurgeon: 40 musicians or so on stage. Right around 40. Yes, exactly the right size.
John Schaefer: There are moments in the Beethoven Symphony that sound like a young composer working through his influences. You hear the echoes of Haydn but, it's Haydn on steroids. [laughter] There's a certain belongingness to the music even at this early stage, the first of the nine symphonies by Beethoven.
Jeff Spurgeon: Beethoven emerging from behind the shadows of Haydn and of Mozart, whose influences are also evident in the first couple of symphonies of Beethoven. You're exactly right, John, there's a little extra something there that is not of either Haydn or of Mozart. That's the Beethoven, the nascent Beethoven beginning to emerge. Maybe, we hear that a little more easily because of our experience with the seven or eight symphonies that follow those first couple but that essence is absolutely right there.
John Schaefer: Continued ovation for Saleem Ashkar and the Galilee Chamber Orchestra here at Carnegie Hall. Not just any night, it is the annual Isaac Stern Memorial Concert. It always means something a little more special even, at this time of the year because as we've mentioned before Isaac Stern was crucially involved in saving this building from demolition in the 1960s. We are just off-stage. Off the main stage, the Isaac Stern Auditorium here at Carnegie Hall. Jeff Spurgeon along with John Schaefer and Saleem Ashkar, the director of the Galilee Chamber Orchestra, joining us.
Jeff Spurgeon: Congratulations on the Carnegie Hall debut of this orchestra.
Saleem Ashkar: Hi. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Jeff Spurgeon: This has been a longer journey than you thought because you were supposed to be here in December of [crosstalk]
Saleem Ashkar: Exactly. We fought very hard as everybody is fighting to get back on stage, but it's all the more meaningful, now.
John Schaefer: In introducing the encore at the end of the first half, you referred to this being an ensemble that knows conflict that comes from conflict.
Saleem Ashkar: Yes. We know conflict comes from a situation of conflict. I felt we never make speeches because we speak through the music.
John Schaefer: Sure.
Saleem Ashkar: At this moment in time, what's happening in the world, we wanted to say something more specific about connecting the vision of what music means to us to the situation now.
Jeff Spurgeon: Now that you've had a great achievement and you have some other stops on this North American tour. Having this young orchestra only 10 years in existence come to Carnegie Hall and make a successful performance like this, it's a real mark for your work. Now, what's next?
Saleem Ashkar: The work in the music never ever ends. It's a blessing and a curse. [laughter] I know that as a pianist. It's the potential of these young musicians is enormous. It can still grow. There's so much to do. The road is very long and we want to keep doing what we're doing back home. The main work is the grassroots work. The daily work of creating coexistence not just symbolically but realistically.
John Schaefer: Right.
Jeff Spurgeon: How do you raise up your musicians? Is this a years-long process of bringing people in--
Saleem Ashkar: Many years-long process. The first step of creating an Arab and Israeli orchestra in Israel is first having Arab musicians. We want to work on equal terms and equal eye to eye. The first step is to create really excellent Arabic musicians and that's the main work of polyphony.
John Schaefer: Which is the conservatory?
Saleem Ashkar: Conservatory, which is connected to the orchestra. Once you have that, then you can start to create real meaningful collaborations.
Jeff Spurgeon: We had a wonderful conversation with one of your violists at intermission, who spoke of making new friends and making new families simply through the association with other musicians. Simply with coming, that was the beginning.
Saleem Ashkar: Yes. No, but listen, music it happens I say, always in high temperatures. Music happens in high temperatures. It's something that the experience is so intense. I compare it to going through something of very high intensity, very high temperature and that's the secret I think.
Jeff Spurgeon: Wonderful. That's a wonderful analogy and something I've never thought of before. You're right music happens in high temperatures. That's wonderful.
John Schaefer: It also, it's people who make the music. Although Saleem, you're standing here talking to us many of your musicians are still out on stage taking photos of each other.
[laughter]
Jeff Spurgeon: Yes. It's really a wonderful night.
Saleem Ashkar: The selfie generation, isn't it? I don't belong to that.
Jeff Spurgeon: You belong to a generation that is doing some amazing work and some selfless work too in sharing music and bringing people together.
Saleem Ashkar: It's not selfless. It's my self-interest to be part of that. It's my pleasure. It's because I have to believe in the future. If I'm sitting passively looking at what happens, then I lose my belief. It is in my self-interest to survive in creating my future. In creating the future for my children, so it is absolutely self-interest involved here.
[laughter]
John Schaefer: Enlightened in self.
Saleem Ashkar: Enlightened in self-interest. Thank you for that.
Jeff Spurgeon: Saleem Ashkar, congratulations on this performance, on this orchestra, on your work, and we're so grateful that you shared some time with us tonight.
Saleem Ashkar: With great pleasure. Thank you very much.
Jeff Spurgeon: Thank you so much. Saleem Ashkar, music director, and artistic director of the Galilee Chamber Orchestra which just concluded its very first performance in Carnegie Hall. Carnegie Hall Live is supported by PwC. PwC's community of solvers works to bring the best of people and tech together to help build trust and deliver sustained outcomes. It all adds up to the new equation, more at the newequation.com.
John Schaefer: Carnegie Hall Live is a Co-production of WQXR and Carnegie Hall.
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