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Gaza: Palestinian conservatory celebrates music despite challenges of blockade and shells

Days after the end of Israel's latest offensive in early May, the Edward Said Palestinian National Conservatory in Gaza held an oud concert on the rubble of a house destroyed by an Israeli strike to celebrate resilience with music. This music school hosts several orchestras and also has several sections: in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Ramallah, among others. But Gaza's school is under blockade, like the rest of the Palestinian enclave, and faces many challenges.

Audio 03:33

An oud class at the Edward Said National Conservatory, the only music school in Gaza, here on February 9, 2015. © Mahmud Hams / AFP

Text by: Sami Boukhelifa Follow

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From our Special Envoy to Gaza,

Melodious notes, in a sinister landscape, a pile of concrete, gray dust covers the ground and trees. Twisted metal structures, the apparent skeleton of a house, blown by the violence of an explosion: in the middle of the rubble, an oud group formed by six musicians, Palestinian keffiyeh on their shoulders, perform an artistic performance supervised by Manel Awad.

« 

Our message is very clear," says the director of the Gaza Conservatory of Music. We are here to say: we are people who love life. Despite all this destruction, we persevere, we live. We are an institute of music, and therefore our language, music, is universal. Through music, we speak to the world, regardless of our differences.

« Every year, new students join our conservatory, to learn to play an instrument. We love life, art, culture, we want to live normally. This is the very nature of the human being. The Palestinian people have nothing different from other peoples, they are distinguished only by the singular suffering they suffer: occupation, aggression, bombing... Our children are dying, and their only wrong is to live on confiscated land. »

It's audition day at the Edward Said National Conservatory in Gaza. This music school is named after a Palestinian-American intellectual, essayist and musicologist who died in 2003.

"We live under constant pressure, music allows me to escape"

A hundred candidates want to join the institute this year, during an interview:

- Name and surname?

- Ahmed Zaquoute.

- Your age?

- 32 years old.

- Interpret what you want.

« 

I graduated in sociology, I did a lot of odd jobs. There is no real work here. There, I am unemployed, explains Ahmed Zaquoute. I really love music, my father made me listen to music from the cradle. My mother would say, "What are you doing? He's a baby, he can't understand." He answered her "But at least he will have a musical ear." And so I grew up listening to the Arab divas, Oum Kalthoum and Faïrouz. I love music, and my heart is full of music, I love the Arabic variety so much. And I'll be honest with you: in Gaza, there's nothing you can do, so joining this school is a way out. We live under constant pressure, music allows me to escape.

The auditions follow one another. Stressed, the young Joumaa, barely 20 years old, is preparing to enter the stage: "I would like to perfect my technique, to concretize my passion. If I manage to enter the conservatory, it will be a first step. It will allow me to prove what I'm worth, and then go abroad. Obviously, we can live in Gaza, but in what condition? Here, for example, we don't even have big festivals or a music festival.

And yet, there is no lack of initiative or will: the Edward Said Palestinian National Conservatory regularly organizes concerts. But in Gaza, under Israeli-Egyptian blockade, everything is a challenge: just the import of musical instruments is a real headache, says the director of the institution.

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