A few days after the end of the last Israeli offensive in early May, the Palestinian Edward Said National Conservatory in Gaza organized 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, in particular. But the school in Gaza is subject to the blockade, like the rest of the Palestinian enclave, and faces many challenges.
From our special envoy to Gaza,
Melodious notes, in a sinister landscape, a heap of concrete, a gray dust covers the ground and the trees. Twisted metal structures, the apparent skeleton of a house, blown up 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 clearexplains the director of the musical conservatory of Gaza. We are here to say: we are people who love life. Despite all this destruction, we persevere, we live. We are a music institute, and therefore our language, music, is universal. Through music, we speak to the whole world, regardless of our differences. »
” Each year, new students join our conservatory to learn to play an instrument. We love life, art, culture, we want to live normally. It is the very nature of being human. The Palestinian people are no different from other peoples, they are distinguished only by the singular suffering they are subjected to: the occupation, the aggressions, the bombings… Our children are dying, and their only wrong is to live on a land confiscated. »
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, the music allows me to escape »
A hundred candidates want to join the institute this year, during an interview :
– Full name ?
– Ahmed Zaquoute.
– Your age ?
– 32 years old.
– Interpret us what you want.
” I graduated in sociology, I did a lot of odd jobs. There really isn’t any work here. Here I am unemployedexplains Ahmed Zaquoute. I really like music, my father made me listen to music from the cradle. My mother told him “but 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 Arabic variety so much. And I’ll be honest with you: in Gaza, there’s nothing to do, so joining this school is an escape. We live under constant pressure, music allows me to escape. »
The auditions follow. Stressed, the young Joumaa, barely 20 years old, prepares to take 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 my worth, and then to go abroad. Obviously, one can live in Gaza, but under what conditions? Here, for example, we don’t even have big festivals or a music festival. »
And yet, it is neither the initiatives nor the will that are lacking: the Palestinian National Conservatory Edward Saïd regularly organizes concerts. But in Gaza, under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade, everything is a challenge : just the importation of musical instruments is a real headache, confides the director of the institution.