This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: July 7, 2008 - Hello again from Suleimanya, a city in the Kurdish Autonomous Region of northeastern Iraq near the Iranian border.
As I send this off to you on Monday night, we've finished two days of teaching and rehearsals and it seems as if we’ve been working for a week. The students’ appetites for learning, practicing and listening seem limitless. It has been wonderful to reunite with many of the students and adults we worked with last year and to meet many more of equal quality, both in terms of musical ability and their basic humanness.
Our days begin at 9:30 or 10 a.m. with lessons, and also with photocopying duty. Reams of music must be produced for the day’s rehearsals and to fill the requests students make for this rare (in Iraq) musical commodity.
A small group of beginning string students meet at 10 a.m., and James Nacy and I take turns with them. The intermediate orchestra, with players between the ages of 17 and 45, meets from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. for lunches of rice, soup, chicken, flatbread, fruit and tea. Their lessons begin at 2. There is a violin and viola technique class at 3; there is chamber music or more lessons until 5 or 6; string pedagogy begins at 5 every other day; and then the Kurdish String Orchestra rehearses from 6:30 to 9 p.m.
Sometimes I plan ahead and have some dinner, but the students are so much fun, and are so curious and eager to play for us that the time flies before my colleagues and I realize we're hungry. The dancers, jazzers, actors and children's theater groups are following similar schedules. Those of us on the faculty meet up after the students go home to discuss the ups and downs we’ve encountered during the day.
Accommodations tend to be on the basic side. The air conditioning works, and although the power goes out in the city a few times every day, the interruptions last only a few seconds. The bathroom is interesting. The shower drain is a hole in the floor next to the toilet. A small shower curtain stretches across the room but doesn't conceal the toilet from the “shower area.” The hotel where we stayed last year is nicer, but last year the U.S. Embassy funded the project. However, the Ministry of Culture of the Kurdish Regional Government has done the best it can and has made it work for us to be here again this year.I am able to enjoy the city's restaurants -- the food is wonderful. I also explore more than last year.
Once again the people have made up for any inconveniences or material discomforts. Last night, Pishko, a good jazz guitarist, took two of us way up a steep mountain to look out over the city. The view is incredible. The air was dusty but cool. Pishko said this is where people go to have picnics on Friday and to relax with their families and friends. We stopped and he bought a can of beer for each of us. Beer only recently has become available.
Pishkoalso said Saddam Hussein didn't let people build houses beyond the bottom of the mountain. Now we could see new developments of large new houses built along the hillside. On the way down the mountain, we passed current Iraqi president Jalal Talabani's enormous house.
Alan Salih, who's coming to St. Louis in August to study at St. Louis University, has been my trusty translator, getting me through the conversations of the day. He is also playing in most of the groups I'm coaching. He plays quite well, and I'm excited that he’ll be in St. Louis this coming year.
The other musician coming to St. Louis is Zana Jalil, whom I also taught last summer. He is not here yet, but should arrive in a few days. They and other advanced string players have formed the Kurdish String Orchestra, which I mentioned earlier. Last night, we read through some of the Bartok Romanian Dances, a Vivaldi Concerto a la Rustica, and the first movement of Bach's Concerto for Two Violins with Alan and me playing the solo parts.
Most of the orchestra members are from Suleimanya but others from Ranya and Kirkuk have joined them. They play quite well. Tonight, we went through more of the Romanian Dances, and James did the first part of Gustav Holst's St. Paul's Suite. They all want lessons, they all want copies of all of the music, they all want to play duets and quartets and they ask for technical help, exercise books, scale books, and ask endless questions. And while some of them are having lessons another 10 or 15 stand around listening, watching the music as a student is playing. This goes on for hours every day.
It will be exciting to have this energy and the benefits of cultural exchange in St. Louis this year. We are still working on finding airfare for the two guys who've been given scholarships by St. Louis U. By some incredible luck, their visas were approved by the U.S. Embassy in Jordan. Our hope -- that an airline would donate tickets, or that the Kurdish government would help to pay transportation costs -- hasn’t been realized.
Round trip tickets will average about $2,000 each. If anyone could help, covering the transportation costs would be most appreciated, and would be a tax-deductible gift if made through American Voices, the organization coordinating this entire project. Go to www.americanvoices.org for more information. And I will be happy to answer any questions that people in the United States may have.