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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