At 10:42 AM -0400 8/15/02, Bill Ballard wrote: >At 11:45 PM +1000 8/15/02, Scott Jackson wrote: >>Now we are getting spam from within the list as well as from outside? > >If you consider a post with an web link spam, yes. My apologies to the list for posting a web link which requires registering with a commercial website, in order to access. You're right , Scott, that's spam in my book too. (I'd forgotten that I had registered with the New York Times web page for free access to the last 7 days' issues, a very good deal for such a solid news source.) Here in its entirety is the article. I hope you enjoy it. Bill Ballard RPT NH Chapter, P.T.G. "A man who tells the truth is bound to be found out sooner or later." ...........Uncle Harry in "The Tailor of Panama" +++++++++++++++++++++ NYT 8/14/02 EAST SULLIVAN, N.H. - Ranan Rishmawi, a 21-year-old Palestinian, dreams of becoming a concert pianist, but she has had few opportunities to practice this year. The Russian-made baby grand piano in her family's home in Bethlehem has not been tuned since October, the last time the tuner, who is from Jerusalem, was able to reach it. Ms. Rishmawi hasn't had a piano lesson in some time because her teacher, who is from Ramallah, months ago gave up trying to pass through the checkpoints along the way. And during one three-week stretch this year, Ms. Rishmawi, her parents and her two siblings were confined to their home in the Palestinian neighborhood of Beit Sahour because of the periodic fighting outside. In early August, with the help of the State Department, Ms. Rishmawi arrived here at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, an old farm that has been converted into a summerlong retreat for several hundred aspiring chamber musicians, many from war-torn regions. Their reaction upon arriving often mirrors that of Ms. Rishmawi, who headed immediately for a cramped rehearsal space on the second floor of a barn and proceeded to play a battered (but in-tune) Chickering for six hours. "It felt like a Steinway," she said later. Since it was founded three decades ago on 110 acres of oak, pine, tiger lillies and hydrangea, the center has provided a desperately needed respite for thousands of classical musicians, many from the Middle East, Ireland and Northern Ireland, the Greek and Turkish parts of Cyprus, and Armenia and Azerbaijan. While one aim of the program is to foster harmony among musicians whose homelands are at war, a more basic goal is to give the participants the space and time to practice their instruments away from bullets and bombs. At Apple Hill, for example, Dilara Mekhtiyeva, a 26-year-old violinist from Azerbaijan, is able to play the bright, sensuous music of the Armenian composer Khachaturian, which, she said, she has been forbidden to do by her government since fighting began in the region in the late 1980's. Not only has she been able to immerse herself in one of Khachaturian's concertos here, but she has also done so accompanied by Spartak Petrosyan, 20, an Armenian violinist studying at the State Conservatory in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. "It's a beautiful concerto that I could not otherwise perform publicly," Ms. Mekhtiyeva said through a translator, a Russian-born pianist from Israel. Of her Armenian accompanist, who was present during an interview at a worn picnic table overlooking a meadow, she added, "We don't have any conflict, and we won't in the future." Theirs is hardly the only compelling story playing out here in Apple Hill's main concert hall, a converted barn that doubles as a mess hall, and in several dozen wood-frame cabins. Michael Doherty, 19, a Catholic who is studying the violin in Londonderry in Northern Ireland, said he relished the opportunity to play Tchaikovsky's Quartet No. 1 in D for Strings at Apple Hill alongside Alistair Hamilton, 21, a Protestant violist also from Northern Ireland, and Megan Armitage, 19, a Catholic violinist from Donegal in "the South of Ireland." But Mr. Doherty said the real thrill was realizing that each had previously played the piece in an orchestra at home and shared a love of the lush, romantic parts. "They appreciated it the way I did," Mr. Doherty said. Eric Stumacher, 55, a Julliard-trained pianist who helped found the Apple Hill Chamber Players and later the center, said he hoped that the eight musicians from the Middle East in residence in August - five Israelis, two Palestinians and one Jordanian - might draw some hope from the Irish musicians, who have described a situation at home that, while still dangerous, is far less tense than it was a decade ago. But while mindful of the Irish example, the Palestinians and Israelis said they were more grateful for the peace and quiet of Apple Hill. Sarah Cohen, 24, a graduate of the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem, said she had been unable to play her cello for days in early spring after hearing a suicide bomb detonate at a coffee shop just steps from her third-floor apartment. "It's the place I go to drink my coffee," she said. "I was shivering." Rather than play, Ms. Cohen said, she began listening more intensely to her compact discs, including two cello sonatas by Brahms, a lonely experience that forced her to "spill out my emotions" as if on a therapist's couch. "It's like an escape to another world," she said. Just days before he arrived at Apple Hill, Shachar Ziv, 21, an Israeli French horn player, was discharged after a three-year tour in the army. Though he had seen no combat in recent months, Mr. Ziv, his blond hair still cropped, said that he, too, had been so preoccupied that he often found himself without the time or energy to play. In addition to picking up his horn again at Apple Hill, Mr. Ziv has performed several original songs, including one he wrote after a bombing at a nightclub in Tel Aviv that has this refrain: "I'm going to sleep now/I'm seeing only what is beautiful." >From a logistical standpoint, the Apple Hill organizers say, the program has been more difficult this year. After the Sept. 11 attacks some countries that had been supporters balked at sending their most prized young musicians to the United States, either in protest or in fear for their safety. A violinist from Syria, for example, and others from Egypt were told by either their own governments or the United States - Mr. Stumacher is unsure which - to stay home. And Ms. Rishmawi's brother, a Palestinian violinist who is a university student, was unable to attend because so many of his classes had been canceled this year that his final exams had been pushed into the summer. "This is an exercise in persistence," Mr. Stumacher said. "We didn't know if Ranan would show up until she got here. We got an e-mail from the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, saying, `Did she make it?' " Many of the aspiring musicians are recruited to the program by Mr. Stumacher and the four other members of the Apple Hill Chamber Players during their annual Playing for Peace tour through regions in conflict. Once musicians express interest, Mr. Stumacher often works through diplomatic channels to get them to New Hampshire, helping route Ms. Rishmawi, for example, across the Jordan River to Amman, then to Frankfurt and on to Boston. Though the program is part of a larger summer school that caters to several dozen aspiring American musicians each summer at a cost of nearly $1,000 per 10-day session, the tuition of many of the foreigners and some musicians drawn from places like poor sections of Dallas and Memphis is paid by grants and other charitable contributions. Like her Israeli counterparts, Ms. Rishmawi, who is also a business student at Bethlehem University, has little desire to enter into any fireside debate over who is to blame for her not being able to play and practice much this year. ("We're not fundamentalists here," said Ms. Cohen, the cellist.) Ms. Rishmawi expressed gratitude that, to minimize distractions, Apple Hill does not permit participants to watch television or surf the Internet. Instead, her brown hair pulled in a tight bun and her dark eyes hidden behind black-rimmed glasses, she has focused on rediscovering her technique, which she says has eroded substantially. During her first few hours at the piano in the barn at Apple Hill, she played only major and minor scales, which, she said, made her feel as if she were 16 again. Only then did she feel she could attempt Bach's Invention No. 4, long a favorite, but which she is now relearning from scratch. Asked what thoughts had gone through her mind at the time, she responded, "I'm free."
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