This is my last post from Iraq. We leave tomorrow afternoon. What a month it has been!
Today was a full day off for me. In the morning I met Ahmed and Omar the translators and we went around town. We dropped by the bazaar to buy gifts and also walked up to the citadel-- the original heart of Erbil. Erbil once conisted only of this town on top of the hill-- even as recently as the 1800's there was not more to the city than the citadel itself. The citadel is famous as the longest continuously inhabited structure in the world, but sadly it was almost completely evacuated a few years ago. In theory for renovation but in fact the money is being lost to corruption and the place is rapidly deteriorating. To walk through the streets is kind of eerie-- totally silent. Ahmed told me this was once the liveliest and noisiest part of the city.
At a bookstore near the Citadel I picked up a nice Kurdish phrasebook and grammar (better than the one I have been using) and I also found a large map of Kuridstan. Those of you know who know my map obsession won't be surprised at this, but I was so excited about the purchase that it was only afterwards that I realized it would be almost impossible to get this classroom-style map on my flights back! We'll see what I can wrangle out of Austrian Air.
I had lunch with Omar and Ahmed. We went to a Baghdadi-run restaurant for saj-- a type of sandwich that can best be described as an Arab burrito; chopped grilled meat rolled up in flatbread. Totally delicious and new to me; a nice meal to have on my last day in the country.
It was nice to chat more with the two guys. They are medical students here in Erbil. Omar had more disturbing, but by this time typical, stories to tell. He comes from a prominent family of doctors in Mosul and their prominence eventually led to, as he put it, a "one-way ticket" from the radical terrorists there. He described actually taking the phone call where they told him that because they respected the family's good works in the community they would give them a chance to get out of town before kidnapping and killing them. The unfortunate thing is that Omar will be required to return to Mosul when his studies are finished. He is trying to find ways to extend his studies, or better yet go to the US. Yet another frightening and painful story out of this country.
Tonight was the dance and theater concert. A total, joyous hit. It helped that the sound system and air-conditioning were working, unlike last night. But the kids ranged from adorable to truly talented and the show was high energy throughout. After the grand finale (to "You Can't Stop the Beat" from Hairspray) they pumped up the Kurdish music and all of us poured on the stage to dance together. This was truly the final goodbye to my students (and many of their parents) and there were many more hugs, kisses and tears. And some wild dancing thrown in. As I've said before, the men here tend to be very demonstrative, and several times a guy would fling his arms around me, kiss me several times on the cheek and neck, and then whirl me away to dance. On top of it all, a few guys from the US army were in attendance in uniform-- even they were swept onto the stage and danced (and were given roses by some of the Kurds-- so it's not entirely a legend!). We all wore pins of the Kurdish flag, or the Kurdish and American flags together.
So tomorrow will be packing and maybe some last minute purchases. I will be staying in Europe for ten days, and I will continue this blog for those family and friends that want to hear about any adventures there. I also plan to write up some final reflections about being here once I am out of the country. I will keep the blog open for comments, and I also may add periodic entries throughout the year as I keep in contact with students from the program. I look forward to being back in the country and seeing my friends and family again. Please be in touch, through here, my facebook page, or via e-mail!
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Erbil Concert
I'm just back from the music concert in Hewler. Beyond exhausted, but I know people get worried when I don't post...
I wish I could report that the concert was an unqualified success, but it was more like a qualified disaster. It was a good challenge, but circumstances played against us all day long.
Yesterday, I told the wind players we would have rehearsal at 1PM. I emphasized the extreme importance of this rehearsal, reminded them that they would all have to eat lunch early in order to get there, and asked them if this presented any problems. These exhortations were repeated in the smaller classes for each instrument. I trust my tanslator got it across-- he almost functions like an extension of me now. Even though he is not a musician, he has spent enough time with me to know what I am going to say and to help me explain. I've even caught him ghosting my conducting.
Anyway, 1PM rolled around. Zero players. I didn't get nervous quite yet. This is Kurdistan, and they are relaxed about schedules. 1:10, no one there. At 1:15 my clarinets, bless their hearts, showed up. And one flute. I caught Frand, the young trumpet player, in the hallway, and he told me he had thought the rehearsal was at 2-- and that's what he told Omar, who had gone off to the market. When I asked where the flutes were, they told me first that they some people didn't know when the rehearsal was, then that they were still eating lunch, then that some of them weren't going to performing at the concert that night! I finally nearly had my meltdown. The documentary cameras were rolling (an American crew has been following us around) and I actually told them to stop the cameras. It was REALLY frustrating-- it was our one chance at the stage (another rehearsal was scheduled there at 2) and there was a lot of stage managing to work out for people coming on and off for the singing. It wasn't until 1:35 that I could begin the rehearsal, and at that point there was only enough time for a quick dash through each piece and shouted directions about how the staging would work. I also told them that at the concert that evening, immediately after I played my solo they had to come backstage to have a warm-up rehearsal (we would have had a 20 minute window).
Well, you can imagine what happened. No one showed up for the warmup rehearsal until 15 minutes after they were supposed to. My grand plans for tuning, warmup, and touching up the messy flute and trumpet pieces fell apart. There was just enough time to play a tuning note when Boran burst into the room and told us we had to start immediately.
So I flung poor Frand and Omar on the stage (stage whispering one last plea "Dynamics!" in their ear as they went out. Predictably, Omar, who had never been on the stage, cracked a little under pressure and had a hard time getting through the piece. The clarinets rocked though. The Beethoven was pretty, and the audience actually started clapping when they played Old Joe Clark.
Dona Nobis Pacem was not all it could have been. The flutes fall apart the first time we play it every time, and this was no exception. We ended almost together. But as soon as they were done I had the whole group stand to sing it, and this went well. You could hear the audience hush so they could hear the melody and it came to a really nice volume as each group came in one by one. It perhaps wasn't the completely magical moment that I had envisioned, but it was definitely something that left an impression.
All day, before and after the concert, has been a constant flurry of demands for signatures, e-mail addresses, notes, photos etc. It was almost impossible even to walk down the hallway, everyone calling "teacher! teacher! Just one photo? Sign this please?" But these were some really hard goodbyes. How do you say "good-bye, good luck, and keep practicing" to someone who's heading back to Mosul, where they might slit her throat for having sheet music? Or bright, charming young Frand, headed back to Baghdad where one of our students was killed for her Western activities last year? I agree with what people have said-- we brought the students joy and exitement and love of art and this is worth a huge amount. But I want to imagine them heading back to normal lives, not this uncertain and edgy violence and fear and entrapment that so many of them seem to live in.
A reminder that even here in Erbil, all is not totally normal-- today at the hotel when I was in the lobby there was a loud bang from somewhere up the street. It was the kind of sound that in an American city would have made me raise my head for second and then go back to what I was doing. Car backfire or some other such city noise. But the doorman and the receptionist dashed towards the door and ran outside to see what wsas going on. They thought it was a bomb. It turned out that some car had blown a tire in the underpass near the hotel. But the idea of a bomb being at the top of everyone's mind was a shock. Erbil had a few car bombings when the violence was at it's height a couple years back and clearly that has left its mark.
It's very late here and I must rest. I'm going out with Ahmed and Omar the translators tomorrow morning. They're fun guys and I'm sure they'll show me interesting stuff.
I wish I could report that the concert was an unqualified success, but it was more like a qualified disaster. It was a good challenge, but circumstances played against us all day long.
Yesterday, I told the wind players we would have rehearsal at 1PM. I emphasized the extreme importance of this rehearsal, reminded them that they would all have to eat lunch early in order to get there, and asked them if this presented any problems. These exhortations were repeated in the smaller classes for each instrument. I trust my tanslator got it across-- he almost functions like an extension of me now. Even though he is not a musician, he has spent enough time with me to know what I am going to say and to help me explain. I've even caught him ghosting my conducting.
Anyway, 1PM rolled around. Zero players. I didn't get nervous quite yet. This is Kurdistan, and they are relaxed about schedules. 1:10, no one there. At 1:15 my clarinets, bless their hearts, showed up. And one flute. I caught Frand, the young trumpet player, in the hallway, and he told me he had thought the rehearsal was at 2-- and that's what he told Omar, who had gone off to the market. When I asked where the flutes were, they told me first that they some people didn't know when the rehearsal was, then that they were still eating lunch, then that some of them weren't going to performing at the concert that night! I finally nearly had my meltdown. The documentary cameras were rolling (an American crew has been following us around) and I actually told them to stop the cameras. It was REALLY frustrating-- it was our one chance at the stage (another rehearsal was scheduled there at 2) and there was a lot of stage managing to work out for people coming on and off for the singing. It wasn't until 1:35 that I could begin the rehearsal, and at that point there was only enough time for a quick dash through each piece and shouted directions about how the staging would work. I also told them that at the concert that evening, immediately after I played my solo they had to come backstage to have a warm-up rehearsal (we would have had a 20 minute window).
Well, you can imagine what happened. No one showed up for the warmup rehearsal until 15 minutes after they were supposed to. My grand plans for tuning, warmup, and touching up the messy flute and trumpet pieces fell apart. There was just enough time to play a tuning note when Boran burst into the room and told us we had to start immediately.
So I flung poor Frand and Omar on the stage (stage whispering one last plea "Dynamics!" in their ear as they went out. Predictably, Omar, who had never been on the stage, cracked a little under pressure and had a hard time getting through the piece. The clarinets rocked though. The Beethoven was pretty, and the audience actually started clapping when they played Old Joe Clark.
Dona Nobis Pacem was not all it could have been. The flutes fall apart the first time we play it every time, and this was no exception. We ended almost together. But as soon as they were done I had the whole group stand to sing it, and this went well. You could hear the audience hush so they could hear the melody and it came to a really nice volume as each group came in one by one. It perhaps wasn't the completely magical moment that I had envisioned, but it was definitely something that left an impression.
All day, before and after the concert, has been a constant flurry of demands for signatures, e-mail addresses, notes, photos etc. It was almost impossible even to walk down the hallway, everyone calling "teacher! teacher! Just one photo? Sign this please?" But these were some really hard goodbyes. How do you say "good-bye, good luck, and keep practicing" to someone who's heading back to Mosul, where they might slit her throat for having sheet music? Or bright, charming young Frand, headed back to Baghdad where one of our students was killed for her Western activities last year? I agree with what people have said-- we brought the students joy and exitement and love of art and this is worth a huge amount. But I want to imagine them heading back to normal lives, not this uncertain and edgy violence and fear and entrapment that so many of them seem to live in.
A reminder that even here in Erbil, all is not totally normal-- today at the hotel when I was in the lobby there was a loud bang from somewhere up the street. It was the kind of sound that in an American city would have made me raise my head for second and then go back to what I was doing. Car backfire or some other such city noise. But the doorman and the receptionist dashed towards the door and ran outside to see what wsas going on. They thought it was a bomb. It turned out that some car had blown a tire in the underpass near the hotel. But the idea of a bomb being at the top of everyone's mind was a shock. Erbil had a few car bombings when the violence was at it's height a couple years back and clearly that has left its mark.
It's very late here and I must rest. I'm going out with Ahmed and Omar the translators tomorrow morning. They're fun guys and I'm sure they'll show me interesting stuff.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Small Miracles
Apologies once more for the missed day. I keep on being reminded how worried people get when I miss a day. I'm flattered by all the concern.
I was out very late last night. Naz, the woman who helped us through the visa process a couple days ago, invited us to come out to the countryside to see her family's farm. In the end, only Carole and I could make it. We drove some 15 miles outside of Erbil, then got off the main road and bumped for several more miles along a barely paved road. In the car were Naz, her husband Tahir, her two young sons (who are in Carole's children's theater program) and Raz, Naz's twin sister. The older of the boys was actually quite fluent in German (he's apparently addicted to German TV shows) so he and I did a lot of the talking and some of the translation ended up being Kurdish-German-English and back.
Their farm was a lovely spot. It was on slightly higher ground so there was a nice view back to the city of Erbil. In the other direction were the higher mountains that we crossed going to Suleimani. The area is fed by an underground river, and the family actually had built a retaining pool for the water that doubled as a swimming pool. The water was actually cold! A rarity in 115-degree Erbil! Immediately on getting there, the father and two boys stripped down to their undies and dove in. I was a little shocked that the men were so free about undressing near the ladies in conservative Iraq, but, egged on by the men and Carole, I followed suit and dove in. It was incredibly refreshing, and such an unexpected pleasure-- fresh cool water under the setting sun in the middle of the desert in Iraq!
After drying off (Carole threatened to hold my towel for ransom), we went on a little walking tour of the farm. They keep geese, a couple of cows and a small herd of goats. There was also a sizeable vegetable patch, and they inisted on picking samples for us to take back to the hotel. Tomatoes, cucumbers, gourds, olives, pomegranates, etc.
As it was getting dark, we headed back to the farmhouse, where a little repast was waiting. First was some delicious "yogurt water", a treat I hadn't had before. I guess it is a byproduct of the yogurt-making process, but it is a tasty drink, cool and milky, with a very slightly sweet taste and a yeasty edge. Absolutely delicious. Roz's husband had picked up several kinds of melon in town and we gorged on the melon and nan with yogurt water. Not exactly a full meal but delicious. We talked about how the festival was going (and Roz's son talked about his favorite German soccer teams at a pace I couldn't really keep up with) and then Carole and I wandered out to check out the stars-- we were far enough from the city that the sky was really studded. The clear skies, the sound of the goats chatting with each other, and the kids playing around made for a kind of prototypical rural family evening that really took us completely out of Iraq for a bit.
Today was the last day of classes and rehearsals. The morning musicianship classes were fine, a big unit on the minor keys. There was applause after each class and a girl presented me with a gift. Touching, as always. Conducting was fine, I taught the last pattern (when there was griping that I hadn't taught 5-, 6-, and 7- beat patterns I shamed them about how useless they were). I finished up with exhortations to listen to as much music as possible and resources for getting full orchestral scores online (obviously not readily available in Iraq).
The winds have miraculously pulled themselves together, at least more than I had been expecting two days ago. The clarinets are doing TWO pieces-- the rousing version of Old Joe Clark and a Beethoven minuet which tends to alternate between whispering and honking, but sounds kind of nice in between. The turkish music specialist still gets frustrated every class, but he came up to me today to let me know that he loved me (all the strugglers seem to do that) and I told him that he was my favorite, that's why I was giving him such a hard time. Big grin.
The trumpets horrible just two days ago. When I told John this morning that I was putting them on the program, he made a face and said he wanted to hear them first before he would approve. So he dropped by trumpet class today and I think he was a little shocked at the improvement. I was very proud of my guys. I call us the "b-team"-- Baghdad, Basra, and Boston! Frand (the Baghdad kid) and I have had a lot of fun-- he speaks good English and love to tell and hear jokes. Poor Omar does his best-- Frand translates some and we do a lot of facial expressions and sign language.
The flutes struggle and struggle, but we can get through their arrangement of Dona Nobis Pacem now-- and the singing is really something. Not perfect, but hearty and with great feeling. Two of the translators, Omar and Ahmed, are in such ecstasy about it (and have attended so many classes) that they have begged to be part of the chorus even though they don't sing. The other teachers are turning up their nose at the hokiness of it but I think it's going to be very effective. We'll see how it comes off at the concert tomorrow.
This evening Carol and I went down to the center to check out the market and specifically some musical instrument shops. We actually found one that was selling french horns! There were some that were made in Korea. Not the greatest, but playable and a student could use them (single F). No supplies for fixing my broken string, but I'll play the Mozart tomorrow night on the faculty concert again and just stay on the B-flat side. Apologies to Mozart and every horn teacher in Boston.
Amazingly, my time here is almost done. The music concert is tomorrow, the dance theater the next day, and we all leave on Monday. What a trip this has been!
I was out very late last night. Naz, the woman who helped us through the visa process a couple days ago, invited us to come out to the countryside to see her family's farm. In the end, only Carole and I could make it. We drove some 15 miles outside of Erbil, then got off the main road and bumped for several more miles along a barely paved road. In the car were Naz, her husband Tahir, her two young sons (who are in Carole's children's theater program) and Raz, Naz's twin sister. The older of the boys was actually quite fluent in German (he's apparently addicted to German TV shows) so he and I did a lot of the talking and some of the translation ended up being Kurdish-German-English and back.
Their farm was a lovely spot. It was on slightly higher ground so there was a nice view back to the city of Erbil. In the other direction were the higher mountains that we crossed going to Suleimani. The area is fed by an underground river, and the family actually had built a retaining pool for the water that doubled as a swimming pool. The water was actually cold! A rarity in 115-degree Erbil! Immediately on getting there, the father and two boys stripped down to their undies and dove in. I was a little shocked that the men were so free about undressing near the ladies in conservative Iraq, but, egged on by the men and Carole, I followed suit and dove in. It was incredibly refreshing, and such an unexpected pleasure-- fresh cool water under the setting sun in the middle of the desert in Iraq!
After drying off (Carole threatened to hold my towel for ransom), we went on a little walking tour of the farm. They keep geese, a couple of cows and a small herd of goats. There was also a sizeable vegetable patch, and they inisted on picking samples for us to take back to the hotel. Tomatoes, cucumbers, gourds, olives, pomegranates, etc.
As it was getting dark, we headed back to the farmhouse, where a little repast was waiting. First was some delicious "yogurt water", a treat I hadn't had before. I guess it is a byproduct of the yogurt-making process, but it is a tasty drink, cool and milky, with a very slightly sweet taste and a yeasty edge. Absolutely delicious. Roz's husband had picked up several kinds of melon in town and we gorged on the melon and nan with yogurt water. Not exactly a full meal but delicious. We talked about how the festival was going (and Roz's son talked about his favorite German soccer teams at a pace I couldn't really keep up with) and then Carole and I wandered out to check out the stars-- we were far enough from the city that the sky was really studded. The clear skies, the sound of the goats chatting with each other, and the kids playing around made for a kind of prototypical rural family evening that really took us completely out of Iraq for a bit.
Today was the last day of classes and rehearsals. The morning musicianship classes were fine, a big unit on the minor keys. There was applause after each class and a girl presented me with a gift. Touching, as always. Conducting was fine, I taught the last pattern (when there was griping that I hadn't taught 5-, 6-, and 7- beat patterns I shamed them about how useless they were). I finished up with exhortations to listen to as much music as possible and resources for getting full orchestral scores online (obviously not readily available in Iraq).
The winds have miraculously pulled themselves together, at least more than I had been expecting two days ago. The clarinets are doing TWO pieces-- the rousing version of Old Joe Clark and a Beethoven minuet which tends to alternate between whispering and honking, but sounds kind of nice in between. The turkish music specialist still gets frustrated every class, but he came up to me today to let me know that he loved me (all the strugglers seem to do that) and I told him that he was my favorite, that's why I was giving him such a hard time. Big grin.
The trumpets horrible just two days ago. When I told John this morning that I was putting them on the program, he made a face and said he wanted to hear them first before he would approve. So he dropped by trumpet class today and I think he was a little shocked at the improvement. I was very proud of my guys. I call us the "b-team"-- Baghdad, Basra, and Boston! Frand (the Baghdad kid) and I have had a lot of fun-- he speaks good English and love to tell and hear jokes. Poor Omar does his best-- Frand translates some and we do a lot of facial expressions and sign language.
The flutes struggle and struggle, but we can get through their arrangement of Dona Nobis Pacem now-- and the singing is really something. Not perfect, but hearty and with great feeling. Two of the translators, Omar and Ahmed, are in such ecstasy about it (and have attended so many classes) that they have begged to be part of the chorus even though they don't sing. The other teachers are turning up their nose at the hokiness of it but I think it's going to be very effective. We'll see how it comes off at the concert tomorrow.
This evening Carol and I went down to the center to check out the market and specifically some musical instrument shops. We actually found one that was selling french horns! There were some that were made in Korea. Not the greatest, but playable and a student could use them (single F). No supplies for fixing my broken string, but I'll play the Mozart tomorrow night on the faculty concert again and just stay on the B-flat side. Apologies to Mozart and every horn teacher in Boston.
Amazingly, my time here is almost done. The music concert is tomorrow, the dance theater the next day, and we all leave on Monday. What a trip this has been!
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Successes and failures
So today was a day of ups and downs.
It began pretty well in musician class. My musicianship classes got lessons on sonata form. I thought I developed a pretty great lesson plan for teaching it, starting with a drill on tonic/dominant and then using a Bach Invention and the Mozart C Major sonata to demonstrate. The 9 and 11:00 classes went great; there was applause at the end of each class! Who knows if they'll keep the concepts but it seemed like they were getting a grip on it (I've always thought sonata form was easy to hear if explained properly).
10:00 conducting was also fun. I found a trio in the band books arranged for instruments in every clef and transposition so I had people bring their instruments and we created a small lab orchestra for everyone to try to conduct. With 30 people in the class it was hard to give anyone more than a quick run-through and some comments but at least some people had a dose of being up front and leading for a couple of minutes. We'll do the same thing tomorrow.
I began teaching Dona Nobis Pacem in the band class. We did our breathing exercises and scales as always and then I tried to sell them on the singing. I met surprisingly little resistance. I think they realize that their voices are more pleasant to listen to than their instruments at this particular stage, and I've also noticed that Kurds seem to love to sing. I've often heard someone walking down the street suddenly break into some kind of wailing melody, charming and very expressive.
The band is learning the song quickly and it sounds quite nice. My translator was thrilled about it-- he thinks it will be a hit!
Things started to go downhill after lunch. Clarinet class was draggy. About halfway about 5 students poked their heads in the door and asked to attend the class; they were clarinet students from the area. I explained that they were welcome to listen, but since they had missed the band classes and the scale warms ups that day (as well as all the other classes) they couldn't play the pieces that we were rehearsing for the concert with us. They sat down quietly enough, but about ten minutes later, they started pestering me to let them play. "The music is easy! Why can't we play with them? Dr. ____ said we could play" Blah blah blah. John Ferguson sometimes says at the end of a day "welcome to Divastan". I stood my ground and said they couldn't play and they grumpily left.
Then came the 3:00 musicianship class. This one is dominated by the older Arab musicians from Mosul who are more experienced but less amenable to learning from me. Today, only two showed up at 3:10. On top of that, the piano sheet music that I had borrowed from Boran, the girl who does a lot of our translating, had been stolen from the piano where I had left it. This is actually not uncommon here, people are so desperate for music, but I felt terrible about having left her music lying out. Between the missing music and the small class I felt upset enough that I ended up cancelling the class for the day. Afterwards, a contingent of the guys came up to me and apologized for being late, and also Boran's musc turned up (someone was photocopying it so it was only "temporarily" stolen) so all's well that ends well.
Next was trumpet class. My trumpets are coming along with the duet. I put Umar from Basra on the first part which is easier to count and less chromatic, and the more talented younger one from Baghdad on second. The Baghdadi guy has a maid/nanny/surrogate mom who attends class with him sometimes and she has grown quite attached to the classes. I saw her singing in the band class today and invited her to sing with the group. She dresses as a rather conservative Muslim woman but she was clearly loving the music and today she pestered me with all kinds of questions about music and also about teaching and money etc. She has a son of her own who plays piano but he had to quit for at least a year because of some kind of finger injury (I didn't ask if it was a result of the Baghdad violence).
The last class of the day was the flutes. I'm still hoping to have them play the trio version of Dona Nobis before we sing it on stage but it's kind of astounding how slowly they are learning it. Everyone got sent home with desperate pleading from me to practice more.
I ate dinner tonight with one of the translators, Omar. He is an interesting guy. In med school, speaks very good English, French and Turkish (and like me bemoans the lack of a decent Kurdish textbook). He is an Arab from Mosul but has converted himself to Christianity. We had a far-ranging discussion from American culture to languages to Jewish tradition (like many, he cautioned me against letting it be known too widely that I am Jewish) to the bible and the Book of Mormon. A friendly and thoughtful guy, like many of our translators.
It began pretty well in musician class. My musicianship classes got lessons on sonata form. I thought I developed a pretty great lesson plan for teaching it, starting with a drill on tonic/dominant and then using a Bach Invention and the Mozart C Major sonata to demonstrate. The 9 and 11:00 classes went great; there was applause at the end of each class! Who knows if they'll keep the concepts but it seemed like they were getting a grip on it (I've always thought sonata form was easy to hear if explained properly).
10:00 conducting was also fun. I found a trio in the band books arranged for instruments in every clef and transposition so I had people bring their instruments and we created a small lab orchestra for everyone to try to conduct. With 30 people in the class it was hard to give anyone more than a quick run-through and some comments but at least some people had a dose of being up front and leading for a couple of minutes. We'll do the same thing tomorrow.
I began teaching Dona Nobis Pacem in the band class. We did our breathing exercises and scales as always and then I tried to sell them on the singing. I met surprisingly little resistance. I think they realize that their voices are more pleasant to listen to than their instruments at this particular stage, and I've also noticed that Kurds seem to love to sing. I've often heard someone walking down the street suddenly break into some kind of wailing melody, charming and very expressive.
The band is learning the song quickly and it sounds quite nice. My translator was thrilled about it-- he thinks it will be a hit!
Things started to go downhill after lunch. Clarinet class was draggy. About halfway about 5 students poked their heads in the door and asked to attend the class; they were clarinet students from the area. I explained that they were welcome to listen, but since they had missed the band classes and the scale warms ups that day (as well as all the other classes) they couldn't play the pieces that we were rehearsing for the concert with us. They sat down quietly enough, but about ten minutes later, they started pestering me to let them play. "The music is easy! Why can't we play with them? Dr. ____ said we could play" Blah blah blah. John Ferguson sometimes says at the end of a day "welcome to Divastan". I stood my ground and said they couldn't play and they grumpily left.
Then came the 3:00 musicianship class. This one is dominated by the older Arab musicians from Mosul who are more experienced but less amenable to learning from me. Today, only two showed up at 3:10. On top of that, the piano sheet music that I had borrowed from Boran, the girl who does a lot of our translating, had been stolen from the piano where I had left it. This is actually not uncommon here, people are so desperate for music, but I felt terrible about having left her music lying out. Between the missing music and the small class I felt upset enough that I ended up cancelling the class for the day. Afterwards, a contingent of the guys came up to me and apologized for being late, and also Boran's musc turned up (someone was photocopying it so it was only "temporarily" stolen) so all's well that ends well.
Next was trumpet class. My trumpets are coming along with the duet. I put Umar from Basra on the first part which is easier to count and less chromatic, and the more talented younger one from Baghdad on second. The Baghdadi guy has a maid/nanny/surrogate mom who attends class with him sometimes and she has grown quite attached to the classes. I saw her singing in the band class today and invited her to sing with the group. She dresses as a rather conservative Muslim woman but she was clearly loving the music and today she pestered me with all kinds of questions about music and also about teaching and money etc. She has a son of her own who plays piano but he had to quit for at least a year because of some kind of finger injury (I didn't ask if it was a result of the Baghdad violence).
The last class of the day was the flutes. I'm still hoping to have them play the trio version of Dona Nobis before we sing it on stage but it's kind of astounding how slowly they are learning it. Everyone got sent home with desperate pleading from me to practice more.
I ate dinner tonight with one of the translators, Omar. He is an interesting guy. In med school, speaks very good English, French and Turkish (and like me bemoans the lack of a decent Kurdish textbook). He is an Arab from Mosul but has converted himself to Christianity. We had a far-ranging discussion from American culture to languages to Jewish tradition (like many, he cautioned me against letting it be known too widely that I am Jewish) to the bible and the Book of Mormon. A friendly and thoughtful guy, like many of our translators.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Dona Nobis Flautistem
Sorry for the delay once more-- the teaching here is intense and I don't have a lot of focus left at the end of the day.
As in Sule, I have gotten used to the rhythm of the teaching and am having fun with the students, even though I am in some ways even more out of my element than I was there.
My musicianship classes are going just fine. They are getting sick of clapping rhythms back at me, but since they still aren't really good at reading them, they'll have to suffer. I did take a break from the rhythms today and went over basic musical terms. Everything was fine until I got to "legato". They are taught that the term is symonymous with "slur" and for me it definitely is not. I almost came to blows with my third class which is mostly older Arab teachers from Mosul. I kind of stuck to my guns though, because it seems to affect the way they play. Since for them a "legato" is only when you slur, they don't seem able to play a legato bow change (most are string players). I discussed this with James and he agreed so I'm redefining legato in Iraq, at least for this week.
Conducting is also fine. We did 3/4 today and discussed some rehearsal technique. Tomorrow I'm going to try to create a mini lab-orchestra. Should be interesting (but chaotic).
My wind players are ok. The level is so low and it's frustrating for me that I don't know ANYTHING about woodwind fingerings. Since the problems are often basic fingering problems, it takes a while to figure things out sometimes. But I do a lot of breathing and scale exercises with them and I haven't had any attrition the way I did in Sule. The flutes, who several days ago were claiming that the music was to easy, now have requested to have class at the end of the day so that they can have an hour and a half instead of just one hour! The whole class did badger me today about being the final performance. I hadn't expected to be in the performance-- the crew is simply too motley to be able to create a band-- but they clearly have their hearts set on it, so I'm getting creative.
The clarinets are the honking-est bunch I've ever heard. We continue to refine "Old Joe Clark" and I think I may put it on the concert. When they pound out the accents at the end of the phrase, I start channeling the fiddling I used to hear in Poughkeepsie. There's one poor guy in the class who is having an exceptionally difficult time. He is trained as a "turkish-style" player. He's always wailing and noodling in the lobbies (to me it sounds a lot like klezmer) but in class he can't read two notes in a row to save his life. I'm trying to keep him encouraged and he always comes in on the accents!
The trumpets are a tough case. One is a 14-year-old from Baghdad. We would consider him decently talented for his age in the US-- which means that he is probably one of the top players in Iraq. The other is a determined fellow from Basra who again, can barely read notes and doesn't really know fingerings. I'm trying to find a duet that they can perform together but it will be hard to get something appropriate.
The flutes are a LOT of work. One or two okay players but the rest are also struggling with note-reading and fingerings. I found a nice little arrangement of "Dona Nobis Pacem" for flute trio and I thought it might be a pice for the group. Not too difficult and certainly a propos for Iraq. But I overestimated my flutes-- 70 minutes of intense rehearsal and they could barely get through the first 8 bars without falling apart. But I had a bit of an inspiration. I asked them to sing their parts (to work on rhythmic issues without their instruments and they actually sounded quite lovely. So now I'm thinking of having a small group play the arrangement and then have the whole band sing the tune in traditional canon. I think it might be quite effective.
I went shopping with James and Rick (one of the dance teachers) and dropped the idea to James. I asked if he thought I might be biting off more than I could chew trying to be a chorus director. He pointed out that I was already teaching 8 things that weren't really my specialty-- what could one more hurt?
Amazingly, we have less than a week left here so I'm starting to make plans beyond Iraq. I will travel in central Europe for ten days on my way back to the US-- I will be in Vienna and Budapest and perhaps somewhere in Croatia-- Zagreb or Dubrovnik. If anyone reading this lives in Europe or will be traveling around then, let me know!
As in Sule, I have gotten used to the rhythm of the teaching and am having fun with the students, even though I am in some ways even more out of my element than I was there.
My musicianship classes are going just fine. They are getting sick of clapping rhythms back at me, but since they still aren't really good at reading them, they'll have to suffer. I did take a break from the rhythms today and went over basic musical terms. Everything was fine until I got to "legato". They are taught that the term is symonymous with "slur" and for me it definitely is not. I almost came to blows with my third class which is mostly older Arab teachers from Mosul. I kind of stuck to my guns though, because it seems to affect the way they play. Since for them a "legato" is only when you slur, they don't seem able to play a legato bow change (most are string players). I discussed this with James and he agreed so I'm redefining legato in Iraq, at least for this week.
Conducting is also fine. We did 3/4 today and discussed some rehearsal technique. Tomorrow I'm going to try to create a mini lab-orchestra. Should be interesting (but chaotic).
My wind players are ok. The level is so low and it's frustrating for me that I don't know ANYTHING about woodwind fingerings. Since the problems are often basic fingering problems, it takes a while to figure things out sometimes. But I do a lot of breathing and scale exercises with them and I haven't had any attrition the way I did in Sule. The flutes, who several days ago were claiming that the music was to easy, now have requested to have class at the end of the day so that they can have an hour and a half instead of just one hour! The whole class did badger me today about being the final performance. I hadn't expected to be in the performance-- the crew is simply too motley to be able to create a band-- but they clearly have their hearts set on it, so I'm getting creative.
The clarinets are the honking-est bunch I've ever heard. We continue to refine "Old Joe Clark" and I think I may put it on the concert. When they pound out the accents at the end of the phrase, I start channeling the fiddling I used to hear in Poughkeepsie. There's one poor guy in the class who is having an exceptionally difficult time. He is trained as a "turkish-style" player. He's always wailing and noodling in the lobbies (to me it sounds a lot like klezmer) but in class he can't read two notes in a row to save his life. I'm trying to keep him encouraged and he always comes in on the accents!
The trumpets are a tough case. One is a 14-year-old from Baghdad. We would consider him decently talented for his age in the US-- which means that he is probably one of the top players in Iraq. The other is a determined fellow from Basra who again, can barely read notes and doesn't really know fingerings. I'm trying to find a duet that they can perform together but it will be hard to get something appropriate.
The flutes are a LOT of work. One or two okay players but the rest are also struggling with note-reading and fingerings. I found a nice little arrangement of "Dona Nobis Pacem" for flute trio and I thought it might be a pice for the group. Not too difficult and certainly a propos for Iraq. But I overestimated my flutes-- 70 minutes of intense rehearsal and they could barely get through the first 8 bars without falling apart. But I had a bit of an inspiration. I asked them to sing their parts (to work on rhythmic issues without their instruments and they actually sounded quite lovely. So now I'm thinking of having a small group play the arrangement and then have the whole band sing the tune in traditional canon. I think it might be quite effective.
I went shopping with James and Rick (one of the dance teachers) and dropped the idea to James. I asked if he thought I might be biting off more than I could chew trying to be a chorus director. He pointed out that I was already teaching 8 things that weren't really my specialty-- what could one more hurt?
Amazingly, we have less than a week left here so I'm starting to make plans beyond Iraq. I will travel in central Europe for ten days on my way back to the US-- I will be in Vienna and Budapest and perhaps somewhere in Croatia-- Zagreb or Dubrovnik. If anyone reading this lives in Europe or will be traveling around then, let me know!
Sunday, July 20, 2008
The Pee-Wee Herman Look
Sorry for the day's hiatus in posting. The teaching schedule in Erbil is grueling and we had a long evening recording for a TV broadcast as well so I was in no shape to write late last night.
So I will be beamed around the world on satellite TV! Those of you who receive Kurdish International TV (Zoraya), be prepared! After the heavy day of teaching last night, we were bussed over to their studios in a far corner of Erbil. The lots were dusty and small children and chickens were wandering around. (Michael's comment: "This don't look like no satellite television station! This is AM RADIO!!") But they did have a little sound stage. And they sicced a hair-and-makeup guy on all of us. Everyone got a standard blowdry and hairspray look except for me-- for some reason the makeup guy got over-excited and slicked my hair up into a dramatic faux-hawk, then hair-sprayed it into a point that could have drawn blood. I LOVED the look. The other guys told me it made me look like Pee-Wee Herman.
My horn is still broken. I played a little Mozart all on B-flat horn. The studio was hot so I was sharp, I was playing with an electric keyboard and anyway I haven't been able to dig in and practice hard for weeks now so it was a mixed performance. I signed the release anyhow. The other guys played the Bach Double (me turning pages for James playing continuo) and Michael sang some showtunes. This was all courtesy of a violinist named Mr. Sirhan who is some kind of bigwig in the culture ministry and a very nice guy (although he wanted to do unlimited takes of the Bach until we complained of heatstroke from the lights...). We finished up late.
Today was the second full day of teaching. I now have three sections of my musicianship class-- 9, 11 and 3PM. So far they have gone surprisingly well. I spend a lot of time doing clap-and-response and then rhythmic training exercises I get out of a band book. The second half of the class is ear-training. I've mostly stuck with the basic divisions-- consonance and dissonance. They are doing okay and getting better with it. I played the first movement of Beethoven Moonlight Sonata at the end of each class today to demonstrate the handling of dissonance and it was fun to hear them murmuring "konts, diss, konts" (my Kurdish neologisms for consonance and dissonance) as I played.
The conducting class is still popular, but as I am rapidly going to run out of things to teach, I'm dropping the class to once every other day. I'm bombarding them with conducting theory-- MY conducting theory. Either I will create a new school of great conducting or Kurdistan will be doomed to permanent obscurity as a result of my teaching. (Teaching here makes one feel grandiose.)
Teaching in Erbil is more of a challenge then Sulemany. The classes are bigger, the level is generally lower (my trombone player would SHINE compared to some of the players here), and also we have students from the arabic parts of Iraq so we often need translators into both Kurdish and Arabic. My wind class is grumbling that the pieces we are working on are too easy, although of course even these they can't play properly. So it goes. I didn't think I was going to have any performing groups, but I got my clarinet section to honk recognizably through a trio version of Old Joe Clark today and I think I may throw them on stage.
Tomorrow we finally sort out our visa status. I have been illegally in Kurdistan for over a week now! We will have to pay some sort of fine at the visa office for which American Voices will reimburse us. Hopefully we won't get thrown into any Iraqi prisons.
So I will be beamed around the world on satellite TV! Those of you who receive Kurdish International TV (Zoraya), be prepared! After the heavy day of teaching last night, we were bussed over to their studios in a far corner of Erbil. The lots were dusty and small children and chickens were wandering around. (Michael's comment: "This don't look like no satellite television station! This is AM RADIO!!") But they did have a little sound stage. And they sicced a hair-and-makeup guy on all of us. Everyone got a standard blowdry and hairspray look except for me-- for some reason the makeup guy got over-excited and slicked my hair up into a dramatic faux-hawk, then hair-sprayed it into a point that could have drawn blood. I LOVED the look. The other guys told me it made me look like Pee-Wee Herman.
My horn is still broken. I played a little Mozart all on B-flat horn. The studio was hot so I was sharp, I was playing with an electric keyboard and anyway I haven't been able to dig in and practice hard for weeks now so it was a mixed performance. I signed the release anyhow. The other guys played the Bach Double (me turning pages for James playing continuo) and Michael sang some showtunes. This was all courtesy of a violinist named Mr. Sirhan who is some kind of bigwig in the culture ministry and a very nice guy (although he wanted to do unlimited takes of the Bach until we complained of heatstroke from the lights...). We finished up late.
Today was the second full day of teaching. I now have three sections of my musicianship class-- 9, 11 and 3PM. So far they have gone surprisingly well. I spend a lot of time doing clap-and-response and then rhythmic training exercises I get out of a band book. The second half of the class is ear-training. I've mostly stuck with the basic divisions-- consonance and dissonance. They are doing okay and getting better with it. I played the first movement of Beethoven Moonlight Sonata at the end of each class today to demonstrate the handling of dissonance and it was fun to hear them murmuring "konts, diss, konts" (my Kurdish neologisms for consonance and dissonance) as I played.
The conducting class is still popular, but as I am rapidly going to run out of things to teach, I'm dropping the class to once every other day. I'm bombarding them with conducting theory-- MY conducting theory. Either I will create a new school of great conducting or Kurdistan will be doomed to permanent obscurity as a result of my teaching. (Teaching here makes one feel grandiose.)
Teaching in Erbil is more of a challenge then Sulemany. The classes are bigger, the level is generally lower (my trombone player would SHINE compared to some of the players here), and also we have students from the arabic parts of Iraq so we often need translators into both Kurdish and Arabic. My wind class is grumbling that the pieces we are working on are too easy, although of course even these they can't play properly. So it goes. I didn't think I was going to have any performing groups, but I got my clarinet section to honk recognizably through a trio version of Old Joe Clark today and I think I may throw them on stage.
Tomorrow we finally sort out our visa status. I have been illegally in Kurdistan for over a week now! We will have to pay some sort of fine at the visa office for which American Voices will reimburse us. Hopefully we won't get thrown into any Iraqi prisons.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Howling in Hewler
Greetings from Hewler/Hawler/Erbil!
Thanks for the sympathetic response to my medical kvetching. Today was a good day, although I no longer take for granted that it's a sign of recovery. Treatment continues and we'll hope for the best. In the meantime, we got started on the next phase of the academy here in Erbil.
There are many things that will make this a very different experience. One interesting change is that there are many more Arabs coming from points south. We have a contingent from Basra, some from Mosul and even a few from Baghdad. I'm excited to have some true diversity and unifying going on, although translation is now even more difficult-- we either need bilingual translators or two at the same time.
I taught my wind class this morning. The level is considerably lower than in Suleimani. I knew I was in trouble when one of my flute players bounced to the front and came out with Minuet in G with B-flats and F-naturals. She couldn't hear that it was wrong and she also didn't know the fingerings for the correct notes! A woodwind specialist I'm not so it's going to be quite something to manage this class. I broke out the beginning band books that we're going to be donating and I think I'm going to start everyone in the class close to the beginning.
I do have a young trumpet player from Baghdad with some potential. His older sister plays in the National Symphony in Baghdad so there's some decent music at home. He speaks some English so we were able to have a private lesson.
When word got around that I was teaching a conducting class, I was mobbed by students who all envisioned themselves becoming the first great Kurdish conductor. I'm afraid of creating monsters (nowhere is it more true than in conducting that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing"), so anyone taking the conducting class is going to be strictly required to take my musicianship class as well. That is going to be be basic reading of rhythms, sight-singing and rudimentary ear-training. How I will accomplish this with no classroom experience and no materials will be an exercise in patience in creativity, but since it turns out I'll be teaching three of these courses every day I'll have a lot of practice.
Although I'll have no band here and probably won't give any performances it seems that I will be even busier. We teachers are bemoaning the huge number of students and generally low level here. It's somewhat frustrating because there's no criteria for admission and some people have no instrument and hardly any music experience at all. (James reports that one cellist reported that he had played once "for nearly an hour"). So all of us are going to be doing a lot of basics teaching which can be interesting but is hardly what we're trained or equipped to do.
One does realize the difficulties that students from some of the other cities have. Many students in my class showed up today with no sheet music to play. Although some of them had no excuse, I was told that in Mosul, it's dangerous to carry around sheet music because the roaming fundamentalist gangs will beat you or even slit your throat for posessing such subversive materials. Makes the problem of disturbing neighbors when practicing at home seem quite small in comparison...
A bright spot in Erbil is that the facility is generally much better. Although finding enough classroom space is still a bit of a struggle, there won't be nearly so many rehearsals in hallways and lobbies as there were in Sule. I'll have an actual piano on which to teach my musicianship class (although it will be dreadfully out of tune, making consonance/dissonance recognition difficult). Also the cafeteria serves large and hearty meals which will be most welcome after all the hours of teaching. Combine that with a hotel that has actual windows that admit daylight in the mornings and I feel like I'm in the lap of luxury here!
Any inspirations on teaching basic ear-training with no materials will be most welcome-- either specific ideas or websites that have resources. I will be winging it and voices of experience would be very useful!
Thanks for the sympathetic response to my medical kvetching. Today was a good day, although I no longer take for granted that it's a sign of recovery. Treatment continues and we'll hope for the best. In the meantime, we got started on the next phase of the academy here in Erbil.
There are many things that will make this a very different experience. One interesting change is that there are many more Arabs coming from points south. We have a contingent from Basra, some from Mosul and even a few from Baghdad. I'm excited to have some true diversity and unifying going on, although translation is now even more difficult-- we either need bilingual translators or two at the same time.
I taught my wind class this morning. The level is considerably lower than in Suleimani. I knew I was in trouble when one of my flute players bounced to the front and came out with Minuet in G with B-flats and F-naturals. She couldn't hear that it was wrong and she also didn't know the fingerings for the correct notes! A woodwind specialist I'm not so it's going to be quite something to manage this class. I broke out the beginning band books that we're going to be donating and I think I'm going to start everyone in the class close to the beginning.
I do have a young trumpet player from Baghdad with some potential. His older sister plays in the National Symphony in Baghdad so there's some decent music at home. He speaks some English so we were able to have a private lesson.
When word got around that I was teaching a conducting class, I was mobbed by students who all envisioned themselves becoming the first great Kurdish conductor. I'm afraid of creating monsters (nowhere is it more true than in conducting that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing"), so anyone taking the conducting class is going to be strictly required to take my musicianship class as well. That is going to be be basic reading of rhythms, sight-singing and rudimentary ear-training. How I will accomplish this with no classroom experience and no materials will be an exercise in patience in creativity, but since it turns out I'll be teaching three of these courses every day I'll have a lot of practice.
Although I'll have no band here and probably won't give any performances it seems that I will be even busier. We teachers are bemoaning the huge number of students and generally low level here. It's somewhat frustrating because there's no criteria for admission and some people have no instrument and hardly any music experience at all. (James reports that one cellist reported that he had played once "for nearly an hour"). So all of us are going to be doing a lot of basics teaching which can be interesting but is hardly what we're trained or equipped to do.
One does realize the difficulties that students from some of the other cities have. Many students in my class showed up today with no sheet music to play. Although some of them had no excuse, I was told that in Mosul, it's dangerous to carry around sheet music because the roaming fundamentalist gangs will beat you or even slit your throat for posessing such subversive materials. Makes the problem of disturbing neighbors when practicing at home seem quite small in comparison...
A bright spot in Erbil is that the facility is generally much better. Although finding enough classroom space is still a bit of a struggle, there won't be nearly so many rehearsals in hallways and lobbies as there were in Sule. I'll have an actual piano on which to teach my musicianship class (although it will be dreadfully out of tune, making consonance/dissonance recognition difficult). Also the cafeteria serves large and hearty meals which will be most welcome after all the hours of teaching. Combine that with a hotel that has actual windows that admit daylight in the mornings and I feel like I'm in the lap of luxury here!
Any inspirations on teaching basic ear-training with no materials will be most welcome-- either specific ideas or websites that have resources. I will be winging it and voices of experience would be very useful!
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Bazaar Erbil
Today was our first full day in Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan in Iraq. It's been a relatively easy day. We were supposed to check out teaching facilities this morning, but a misplaced key meant that we couldn't get into our offices so the trip was off. We took advantage of the mishap to take a day off and do a little sightseeing (otherwise, in case you haven't noticed, this job has NO days off).
I thought Suleimany was pretty hot and pretty dusty. However, Erbil outdoes it on both fronts. Temperatures easily top 115 every day and the air is perpetually hazy and the dust coats everything.
Erbil is substantially larger than Suleimany and feels more like a city, both in terms of its density and also the pace that people seem to move at. We all immediately noticed how much less friendly and open the people seem here than in Sule; definitely more of a big city vibe. I'm sure we'll discover their charms as well.
The whole city, as I noticed from the airplane landing here, is laid out in concentric circles around the ancient citadel. The citadel is a massive edifice; something like a cross between a moutain, fortress, and apartment building. I only walked around the market at its base, so I wasn't able to go up to the top, but it appears there's a whole small town up there, although all I could see were the walls and balconies of some of the outer apartments.
The hotel we are staying in is just a 15 minute walk from the center of town (assuming you'd want to walk in the heat). Marc, James and I decided to hit the bazaar and see what was going on there. When we left the hotel, we told one of the friendly bellboys where we were going and he became genuinely worried: "be careful there! You are foreigners!" Be careful of what? "Everything!" We proceeded with caution, but after about twenty minutes there he actually tracked us down and made himself our guide. It was a touching gesture, especially since it was clear that he didn't expect us to pay him-- he just wanted to keep an eye on us.
The market was as you might expect: a warren of narrow allies covered by corrugated tin. A lot of dreck but some really spectacular jewelry here and there and nice carpets and cloth work. I'm thinking of picking up some smaller throw rugs and maybe some of the Kurdish "rosaries"-- beaded necklaces which seem to be used for prayer just like their Catholic equivalents. In one antique shop, while Marc and James were haggling over some piece of jewelry, I spied, deep in a dusty and disorganized case, a miniature Jewish menorah. It looked kind of beat up and I thought I might be able to get it for a low price as an interesting memento. But when I pointed it out to the shopkeeper he stopped haggling, got serious, and said, "not for sale". When I pressed him, he said asking price was US$700. The thing was probably two inches high; I'd love to know the story of how it got there and why he was unwilling to sell it.
Being Jewish is an interesting issue here. John actually asked me not to tell the Kurds that I was Jewish, advice that eventually became difficult to follow. One of the translators for the organization is one-quarter Jewish and he begged me to keep it quiet. On the other hand, my translator told me that Suleimany had a Jewish quarter-- I was sorry that I didn't have time to visit!
Somewhat bad news on the medical front: the sulfur treatment appears not to have been terribly effective. The itching is back as bad as ever and is now accompanied by a new rash on my upper body and face (which was unaffected before and was not part of the treatment). So I may be back to square one. Did the scabies not respond to the treatment? Was it scabies in the first place? Am I having an allergic reaction to the myriad creams and chemicals I've been putting on myself, outside of the original itch? I've decided not to go back to a doctor unless I can get to an American one, simply so I can discuss the situation in detail and not deal with the language barrier.
As things are, I'm finding myself seriously considering cutting the trip short. The discomfort is such that I find it difficult to focus for very long, and in this session in Erbil, I will be doing things which will require a lot of planning and thought. Teaching a general musicianship class and a conducting class with no materials would be a challenge for me under the best of circumstances (I am much more comfortable in rehearsal and private lesson settings) and right now between the itching itself and the lack of sleep I am worried about being effective at all. It would be a terrible shame to go home early for something as minor as an itch but I am miserable enough to consider it. I'll be consulting with John tomorrow. It will be the first day of classes but largely administrative so I have a buffer before making a final decision. Cross your fingers for me-- I'd rather stay!
I thought Suleimany was pretty hot and pretty dusty. However, Erbil outdoes it on both fronts. Temperatures easily top 115 every day and the air is perpetually hazy and the dust coats everything.
Erbil is substantially larger than Suleimany and feels more like a city, both in terms of its density and also the pace that people seem to move at. We all immediately noticed how much less friendly and open the people seem here than in Sule; definitely more of a big city vibe. I'm sure we'll discover their charms as well.
The whole city, as I noticed from the airplane landing here, is laid out in concentric circles around the ancient citadel. The citadel is a massive edifice; something like a cross between a moutain, fortress, and apartment building. I only walked around the market at its base, so I wasn't able to go up to the top, but it appears there's a whole small town up there, although all I could see were the walls and balconies of some of the outer apartments.
The hotel we are staying in is just a 15 minute walk from the center of town (assuming you'd want to walk in the heat). Marc, James and I decided to hit the bazaar and see what was going on there. When we left the hotel, we told one of the friendly bellboys where we were going and he became genuinely worried: "be careful there! You are foreigners!" Be careful of what? "Everything!" We proceeded with caution, but after about twenty minutes there he actually tracked us down and made himself our guide. It was a touching gesture, especially since it was clear that he didn't expect us to pay him-- he just wanted to keep an eye on us.
The market was as you might expect: a warren of narrow allies covered by corrugated tin. A lot of dreck but some really spectacular jewelry here and there and nice carpets and cloth work. I'm thinking of picking up some smaller throw rugs and maybe some of the Kurdish "rosaries"-- beaded necklaces which seem to be used for prayer just like their Catholic equivalents. In one antique shop, while Marc and James were haggling over some piece of jewelry, I spied, deep in a dusty and disorganized case, a miniature Jewish menorah. It looked kind of beat up and I thought I might be able to get it for a low price as an interesting memento. But when I pointed it out to the shopkeeper he stopped haggling, got serious, and said, "not for sale". When I pressed him, he said asking price was US$700. The thing was probably two inches high; I'd love to know the story of how it got there and why he was unwilling to sell it.
Being Jewish is an interesting issue here. John actually asked me not to tell the Kurds that I was Jewish, advice that eventually became difficult to follow. One of the translators for the organization is one-quarter Jewish and he begged me to keep it quiet. On the other hand, my translator told me that Suleimany had a Jewish quarter-- I was sorry that I didn't have time to visit!
Somewhat bad news on the medical front: the sulfur treatment appears not to have been terribly effective. The itching is back as bad as ever and is now accompanied by a new rash on my upper body and face (which was unaffected before and was not part of the treatment). So I may be back to square one. Did the scabies not respond to the treatment? Was it scabies in the first place? Am I having an allergic reaction to the myriad creams and chemicals I've been putting on myself, outside of the original itch? I've decided not to go back to a doctor unless I can get to an American one, simply so I can discuss the situation in detail and not deal with the language barrier.
As things are, I'm finding myself seriously considering cutting the trip short. The discomfort is such that I find it difficult to focus for very long, and in this session in Erbil, I will be doing things which will require a lot of planning and thought. Teaching a general musicianship class and a conducting class with no materials would be a challenge for me under the best of circumstances (I am much more comfortable in rehearsal and private lesson settings) and right now between the itching itself and the lack of sleep I am worried about being effective at all. It would be a terrible shame to go home early for something as minor as an itch but I am miserable enough to consider it. I'll be consulting with John tomorrow. It will be the first day of classes but largely administrative so I have a buffer before making a final decision. Cross your fingers for me-- I'd rather stay!
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Arrival in Hewler/Erbil
Khwa le-gel, Suleimani, Chony Arbil!
Sorry about the missed day. Concert and post-concert festivities had us busy until late last night and today was a day of travel. This post comes to you from the Chwardra hotel in Arbil (that name seems to be used only in print; everyone seems to call it by its alternate name, "Hewler" or "Hawler".
Yesterday, of course, was the final concert in Suleimany. It was quite a marathon (one of the film crew called it "Wagnerian" in length). For logistical reasons, we decided to do one large concert of all the theater, dance and music programs together instead of two separate evenings. The result was one four-hour-long extravaganza.
We had a dress rehearsal earlier in the day. I gave the band a lecture about extra focus in concerts and we ran the pieces with touch-ups. After we were through, I told them what joy it gave me to work with them, how much I had learned from them, and how glad I was to have had the opportunity. I said I hoped that we would have more opportunities to work with them in the future, both here and in my home country. When the translator said this, they bowled me over with a shouted "inshallah!" (may it be god's will). I responded with an "inshallah" of my own and dimissed them with a "Al-Hamdu Lillah"-- an Arabic expression that literally means "praise be to god" but is used so frequently by everyone here that it seems to have lost its religious connotation. After the rehearsal I was mobbed by students wanting my e-mail address, photos with me, or just to hug me and cling to me (men are very physically demonstrative here). Tears in everyone's eyes.
The concert began at 6 with the hall packed absolutely to the gills. The hall seated 700-800-- we probably had half again as much. They tried their best with security but things were chaotic. Soldiers serve as ushers here. They actually locked the doors to the hall when the performance got started so no one could leave or enter-- a somewhat terrifying fire hazard. On the other hand, there's something to be said for having armed ushers-- a group of teenagers started getting rowdy in my section and a guy strode over and gave them a warning. Sometimes I wish we could arm ushers at US concert halls with automatic rifles too...
The childrens dance and theater was adorable, of course. The theme of the program was "You Can't Stop the Music", and there were several numbers from Hairspray as well as some other classics. The audience was ecstatic about everything; wild cheers erupted at every opportunity. Gene put up a bunch of jazz groups that ranged from an EXTREMELY laid back group of 7 blues guitars to to a rousing rendition of "Chameleon" on guitar, soprano sax and 'oud (the traditional Arab instrument) complete with hip-hop dancing. An amusing error occurred earlier in the program; it was so noisy backstage (and the sound system so poor) that the dancers couldn't hear what piece was being played and ended up coming out to a laid-back Coltrane number instead. They made it work okay-- it was hip-hop in very slow motion.
There were also a number of theater scenes in Kurdish, and a number of small dance troupes of varying ages. Talent level, as always, ranged from just this side of clueless to some really engaging stage work. The stage and sound system were not ideal-- no lighting system to speak of so we brought in a couple light trees and disco lighting. The sound guy was not terribly competent and didn't speak English so there were a lot of false starts. The audience remained enthusiastic about everything.
The hall was so packed that I was glad there was some attrition as the program went on. When we finally got to the band, about three hours in, we were down to a 90% house (as opposed to the standing room 150% house we started with.
The band gave me some nail-biters. Despite the lecture about extra focus in the concert, they still went wild in the intro to the Brahms right at the beginning and we nearly had a train wreck right out of the gate. Amazingly, the trumpets stepped up (they lead a chorale section about 30 seconds into the piece) and we managed to get on track. It was still a little wobbly but we got through. The trombones blasted the last note as loud as they could and I gave them a look that made one of them hang his head. I'm beginning to hone my "nasty conductor" skills.
The next piece was the medley of American river songs (Deep River, The Water is Wide, and Shenandoah). After wishing the audience "Ewaratan Bash" (good evening) I did a quick talk on the importance of rivers in America and Iraq and described what each song was about. The band settled down and did some nice responsive work in the songs.
Finally, of course, was the Danse Diabolique. Before we played, I brought Mr. Najat to the stage and asked the audience to appreciate the work he did with the Wind Ensemble. Appreciative applause, and I know he enjoyed the gesture. The band did a great job with the the piece-- as well as they had played in any rehearsal. Even the trombones managed to move from a monotone to two notes for ther solos. The piece has a rousing conclusion and the audience loved it. They jumped to their feet with raucous cheers and I managed to get a curtain call or two out of them. Backstage, the people from American Voices who knew the band were astounded-- they said they had never heard wind playing like that here. I was very proud of my guys.
Afterwards, Mr. Najat invited me to have dinner with him and the wind orchestra. It was nice to actually sit down and meet him for a bit. He lived in Denmark for 25 years (his wife is still there) and studied at conservatory in Poland. He also spent a year in Nashville. I know that he has been difficult for our organization to work with and perhaps has done some underhanded things; on the other hand, I have some sympathy for him. It was like this in China too-- in these kinds of settings, you must politically defend your territory like a dog, or you risk losing everything and sometimes you learn to be difficult and Machiavellian. I was glad to end the time in Suleimani on Mr. Najat's good side; if American Voices goes back there, I hope that he will allow his band to participate, and if we left him angry, he could forbid them from going.
This morning we traveled to Erbil, in considerably less comfort than the outgoing trip. Where we had a a caravan of air-conditioned SUV's and a security detail on the way out, this time we had two mini-buses with broken air-conditioning and a tendency to fill with exhaust fumes. No escort at all, so we had to stop at the various checkpoints. Usually when it was clear that we were a bunch of foreigners, we were waved through. At one point we were asked to show our passports, which was a bit of a nail-biter since we have technically overstayed our visas (long story, they'll be renewed tomorrow) but the guards glanced at the documents and waved us through. The translators traveling with us told us that most of the soldiers are totally illiterate anyhow, so they wouldn't be able to decipher the documents in any case.
The hotel here is somewhat nicer than Suleimani. I'm enjoying having real sunlight in my room, and a separate shower stall. Today was the first time in three days that I've been allowed to shower and change clothes, so finally I don't smell like sulphur. I still itch though (even after the bugs are dead you continue to itch for a while) and I'm on a secondary treatment, so I'm still smeared with with ointment.
Tomorrow we check out the site for teaching in Erbil.
Sorry about the missed day. Concert and post-concert festivities had us busy until late last night and today was a day of travel. This post comes to you from the Chwardra hotel in Arbil (that name seems to be used only in print; everyone seems to call it by its alternate name, "Hewler" or "Hawler".
Yesterday, of course, was the final concert in Suleimany. It was quite a marathon (one of the film crew called it "Wagnerian" in length). For logistical reasons, we decided to do one large concert of all the theater, dance and music programs together instead of two separate evenings. The result was one four-hour-long extravaganza.
We had a dress rehearsal earlier in the day. I gave the band a lecture about extra focus in concerts and we ran the pieces with touch-ups. After we were through, I told them what joy it gave me to work with them, how much I had learned from them, and how glad I was to have had the opportunity. I said I hoped that we would have more opportunities to work with them in the future, both here and in my home country. When the translator said this, they bowled me over with a shouted "inshallah!" (may it be god's will). I responded with an "inshallah" of my own and dimissed them with a "Al-Hamdu Lillah"-- an Arabic expression that literally means "praise be to god" but is used so frequently by everyone here that it seems to have lost its religious connotation. After the rehearsal I was mobbed by students wanting my e-mail address, photos with me, or just to hug me and cling to me (men are very physically demonstrative here). Tears in everyone's eyes.
The concert began at 6 with the hall packed absolutely to the gills. The hall seated 700-800-- we probably had half again as much. They tried their best with security but things were chaotic. Soldiers serve as ushers here. They actually locked the doors to the hall when the performance got started so no one could leave or enter-- a somewhat terrifying fire hazard. On the other hand, there's something to be said for having armed ushers-- a group of teenagers started getting rowdy in my section and a guy strode over and gave them a warning. Sometimes I wish we could arm ushers at US concert halls with automatic rifles too...
The childrens dance and theater was adorable, of course. The theme of the program was "You Can't Stop the Music", and there were several numbers from Hairspray as well as some other classics. The audience was ecstatic about everything; wild cheers erupted at every opportunity. Gene put up a bunch of jazz groups that ranged from an EXTREMELY laid back group of 7 blues guitars to to a rousing rendition of "Chameleon" on guitar, soprano sax and 'oud (the traditional Arab instrument) complete with hip-hop dancing. An amusing error occurred earlier in the program; it was so noisy backstage (and the sound system so poor) that the dancers couldn't hear what piece was being played and ended up coming out to a laid-back Coltrane number instead. They made it work okay-- it was hip-hop in very slow motion.
There were also a number of theater scenes in Kurdish, and a number of small dance troupes of varying ages. Talent level, as always, ranged from just this side of clueless to some really engaging stage work. The stage and sound system were not ideal-- no lighting system to speak of so we brought in a couple light trees and disco lighting. The sound guy was not terribly competent and didn't speak English so there were a lot of false starts. The audience remained enthusiastic about everything.
The hall was so packed that I was glad there was some attrition as the program went on. When we finally got to the band, about three hours in, we were down to a 90% house (as opposed to the standing room 150% house we started with.
The band gave me some nail-biters. Despite the lecture about extra focus in the concert, they still went wild in the intro to the Brahms right at the beginning and we nearly had a train wreck right out of the gate. Amazingly, the trumpets stepped up (they lead a chorale section about 30 seconds into the piece) and we managed to get on track. It was still a little wobbly but we got through. The trombones blasted the last note as loud as they could and I gave them a look that made one of them hang his head. I'm beginning to hone my "nasty conductor" skills.
The next piece was the medley of American river songs (Deep River, The Water is Wide, and Shenandoah). After wishing the audience "Ewaratan Bash" (good evening) I did a quick talk on the importance of rivers in America and Iraq and described what each song was about. The band settled down and did some nice responsive work in the songs.
Finally, of course, was the Danse Diabolique. Before we played, I brought Mr. Najat to the stage and asked the audience to appreciate the work he did with the Wind Ensemble. Appreciative applause, and I know he enjoyed the gesture. The band did a great job with the the piece-- as well as they had played in any rehearsal. Even the trombones managed to move from a monotone to two notes for ther solos. The piece has a rousing conclusion and the audience loved it. They jumped to their feet with raucous cheers and I managed to get a curtain call or two out of them. Backstage, the people from American Voices who knew the band were astounded-- they said they had never heard wind playing like that here. I was very proud of my guys.
Afterwards, Mr. Najat invited me to have dinner with him and the wind orchestra. It was nice to actually sit down and meet him for a bit. He lived in Denmark for 25 years (his wife is still there) and studied at conservatory in Poland. He also spent a year in Nashville. I know that he has been difficult for our organization to work with and perhaps has done some underhanded things; on the other hand, I have some sympathy for him. It was like this in China too-- in these kinds of settings, you must politically defend your territory like a dog, or you risk losing everything and sometimes you learn to be difficult and Machiavellian. I was glad to end the time in Suleimani on Mr. Najat's good side; if American Voices goes back there, I hope that he will allow his band to participate, and if we left him angry, he could forbid them from going.
This morning we traveled to Erbil, in considerably less comfort than the outgoing trip. Where we had a a caravan of air-conditioned SUV's and a security detail on the way out, this time we had two mini-buses with broken air-conditioning and a tendency to fill with exhaust fumes. No escort at all, so we had to stop at the various checkpoints. Usually when it was clear that we were a bunch of foreigners, we were waved through. At one point we were asked to show our passports, which was a bit of a nail-biter since we have technically overstayed our visas (long story, they'll be renewed tomorrow) but the guards glanced at the documents and waved us through. The translators traveling with us told us that most of the soldiers are totally illiterate anyhow, so they wouldn't be able to decipher the documents in any case.
The hotel here is somewhat nicer than Suleimani. I'm enjoying having real sunlight in my room, and a separate shower stall. Today was the first time in three days that I've been allowed to shower and change clothes, so finally I don't smell like sulphur. I still itch though (even after the bugs are dead you continue to itch for a while) and I'm on a secondary treatment, so I'm still smeared with with ointment.
Tomorrow we check out the site for teaching in Erbil.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Oh say can you see...
Today was the final day of rehearsals before the dress and gala concert. The band will keep me on my toes until the last minute. I tried running the easy pieces at the beginning of the rehearsals and they nearly fell apart. They do know how to make a much better sound now, though. Anyway, it's unlikely that anyone in the audience knows "Deep River", "Shenandoah" and "The Water is Wide". Or Brahms 1 for that matter. The band kind of rocks on the Danse Diabolique (at least, that's what I think) but that's fast and sound doesn't matter as much.
Mr. Najat is still hanging around-- I made an announcement about concert dress being white top and black bottom (and NO hats) and he immediately stepped in to alter it to all black. Who am I to differ? John Ferguson, the director here, still worries that he's going to step in at the last second to and try to conduct the concert. That would be an interesting bit of drama.
Tomorrow's concert will have a prelude in the lobby, and I'll be accompanying a couple of my wind students-- an Albinoni oboe concerto and a movement of a Bach suite. None of these hats fits me very well, but I sure have a lot of them at the moment. The one thing I'm barely doing is playing my horn-- I broke a string on a valve and I'm trying to find a replacement string here. I may use one of Marc's used gut strings!
After band rehearsal today I gave the trumpets one last sectional. Those army guys are persistent. We kept on hammering away at stuff, and even after it was scheduled to be over, they kept on asking to rehearse more sections or to play something through one more time. It was fine with me, although my Fasil (the translator) gets tired at the end of the day. He's kind of been the limiting factor in my lessons since he won't stay late and the other translators are busy with the other teachers. And I can't fake my way in Kurdish at all.
At the end of the trumpet sectional, one of the guys brought out a little crumpled sheet of music. It was "Star Spangled Banner" with "Department of Defense" emblazoned across the top of it. They wanted me to help them with the style! I made sure they knew what it was (they did) and then I gave them a good coaching. I mean, if they're going to do it, they should do it right). So I sang it for them in as heartfelt and patriotic a manner as I could, and then I played it for them. They told me they want to memorize it. The general feeling here in Kurdistan is pro-US, no question.
It reminded me of an incident earlier in the week with Gene Aitken, the jazz teacher. When I was going through the boxes of music to decide what the band would play, I came across Star Spangled Banner. It seemed to me to be wildly inappropriate, and I kind of chuckled as I pointed it out. Gene told me he thought I ought to do it. I said it seemed not quite right for the situation. A little miffed, he said he had just done it in Nepal. I retorted that we hadn't invaded Nepal recently and he got annoyed and said "whatever". A minute later he tossed "Anchors Aweigh" (the American Navy march) at me-- I think he just wanted to piss me off. There's always more than one point of view. Obviously, many Kurds wouldn't mind playing the US anthem, but it was as much about what I felt comfortable with as anything else. If we were going to play for an American delegation, then it would be a nice gesture. Otherwise, who does it really benefit?
After rehearsal today, one of my army trumpet players offered me a ride home in his cab. I guess when he's not on duty, and not playing trumpet, he's driving a taxi. I declined the ride because I like unwinding on the walk home, but I thought it was a nice gesture.
This evening we went back to Zara's cafe, the Western-style supermarket towards the center of town. My cellphone mysteriously sends and receives text messages there (who knows how much they cost me). The place was filled with families shopping. Obviously the upper crust here but it was packed. I even heard a little girl chattering in English with her parents, even though all were clearly Kurdish.
I'm coated in my second layer of sulfur tonight. Did I mention that I'm NOT to change clothes until the treatment is over? I guess the idea is to get this set saturated in sulfur while the other ones are laundered or boiled or burned. My undergarments are acquiring a distinct yellow tinge. Thanks all for writing about scabies experiences. Makes me feel a little less dirty...
Mr. Najat is still hanging around-- I made an announcement about concert dress being white top and black bottom (and NO hats) and he immediately stepped in to alter it to all black. Who am I to differ? John Ferguson, the director here, still worries that he's going to step in at the last second to and try to conduct the concert. That would be an interesting bit of drama.
Tomorrow's concert will have a prelude in the lobby, and I'll be accompanying a couple of my wind students-- an Albinoni oboe concerto and a movement of a Bach suite. None of these hats fits me very well, but I sure have a lot of them at the moment. The one thing I'm barely doing is playing my horn-- I broke a string on a valve and I'm trying to find a replacement string here. I may use one of Marc's used gut strings!
After band rehearsal today I gave the trumpets one last sectional. Those army guys are persistent. We kept on hammering away at stuff, and even after it was scheduled to be over, they kept on asking to rehearse more sections or to play something through one more time. It was fine with me, although my Fasil (the translator) gets tired at the end of the day. He's kind of been the limiting factor in my lessons since he won't stay late and the other translators are busy with the other teachers. And I can't fake my way in Kurdish at all.
At the end of the trumpet sectional, one of the guys brought out a little crumpled sheet of music. It was "Star Spangled Banner" with "Department of Defense" emblazoned across the top of it. They wanted me to help them with the style! I made sure they knew what it was (they did) and then I gave them a good coaching. I mean, if they're going to do it, they should do it right). So I sang it for them in as heartfelt and patriotic a manner as I could, and then I played it for them. They told me they want to memorize it. The general feeling here in Kurdistan is pro-US, no question.
It reminded me of an incident earlier in the week with Gene Aitken, the jazz teacher. When I was going through the boxes of music to decide what the band would play, I came across Star Spangled Banner. It seemed to me to be wildly inappropriate, and I kind of chuckled as I pointed it out. Gene told me he thought I ought to do it. I said it seemed not quite right for the situation. A little miffed, he said he had just done it in Nepal. I retorted that we hadn't invaded Nepal recently and he got annoyed and said "whatever". A minute later he tossed "Anchors Aweigh" (the American Navy march) at me-- I think he just wanted to piss me off. There's always more than one point of view. Obviously, many Kurds wouldn't mind playing the US anthem, but it was as much about what I felt comfortable with as anything else. If we were going to play for an American delegation, then it would be a nice gesture. Otherwise, who does it really benefit?
After rehearsal today, one of my army trumpet players offered me a ride home in his cab. I guess when he's not on duty, and not playing trumpet, he's driving a taxi. I declined the ride because I like unwinding on the walk home, but I thought it was a nice gesture.
This evening we went back to Zara's cafe, the Western-style supermarket towards the center of town. My cellphone mysteriously sends and receives text messages there (who knows how much they cost me). The place was filled with families shopping. Obviously the upper crust here but it was packed. I even heard a little girl chattering in English with her parents, even though all were clearly Kurdish.
I'm coated in my second layer of sulfur tonight. Did I mention that I'm NOT to change clothes until the treatment is over? I guess the idea is to get this set saturated in sulfur while the other ones are laundered or boiled or burned. My undergarments are acquiring a distinct yellow tinge. Thanks all for writing about scabies experiences. Makes me feel a little less dirty...
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Greasy and smelly
Ewarat bash (good evening) from Sulemani!
I first must say how moving some of the comments on the last post were to me. I am reminded again how lucky I feel to have such passionate and feeling friends and family. And I must say, I was playing a bit of the devil's advocate in the last post. As many of you know, I asked myself the question of whether I could put a life together without playing the french horn years ago and discovered the answer was an emphatic no-- I couldn't help but play. And in the past few years, I've found that, to a somewhat lesser degree, I cannot help but teach as well.
So I do what I do, and the students do what they do. From the moment I heard of the opportunity to be here, I think it was invevitable that I would come. And I have no regrets that I have.
That said, inspiring and fulfilling as it is to work with students who have so little opportunity, it is amusing to what degree we approach the same mix of attitudes and degrees of talent, seriousness, inflated self-perspective, and attitude that I would expect from any mix of high school and young college students. Of course, in this setting, the very normality of it is comforting and somewhat encouraging. We truly are so much more the same than we are different. Music is a wonderful high-level common denominator, but a lower-level one is the constitutional inability of a seventeen-year-old guy to read a dynamic or practice slowly! And I love it all.
Today was an interesting day for entirely different reasons. I may be wandering into the dangerous blog terrain of TMI, but it's an amusing story.
I have been alluding a little to a medical problem that I have been having. The short version, for those who haven't seen me recently, is this: I have been itching. All over. Intensely. All the time. This started about five weeks ago, and I haven't really had a decent night of sleep since then. I had been to three doctors in the US and they all had diagnosed it as some sort of allergy. They ruled out some of the scarier possibilities, like skin cancer and other umentionables, but none of them could come up with a diagnosis that made the slight different. No treatment seemed even to alleviate the itching, let alone cure it.
Well, sometimes it pays to hang out with a bunch of teachers who are used to third-world countries. It turns out I have a rather intense case of scabies. Definitely somewhat embarassing (although not so much that I don't write about it here), but such a relief to know that I have something treatable and that this will all be coming to an end.
Of course, being in Iraq, my treatment is a little old school. I went by the hospital this morning for the diagnosis and prescription. And so it is that I am now coated in an ointment made from 10% sulfur. The pharmacist mixed it up on the spot in a ramshackle old shop in the central bazaar in town. The doctor has told me that I may not shower or change clothes for the next three days, only add layers of this sulfurous stuff. Since our concert is Tuesday, that means that I have already donned my concert clothes and I they should be thoroughly imbued with sulfur by the time of the concert. This may put some conductor odor stories to shame! However, any kind of suffering will be worth it if it brings this miserable sleepless itching to a close.
Running around town to take care of the prescriptions and dealing with my clothing took up almost the whole morning, so wind class was cancelled. Band continues well. At tonight's teachers' meeting to plan the concert on Tuesday, I was proud to be able to say I could provide a fifteen-minute program and a big finish if they needed one. Except for the trombone solos in the Helmesberger. My homework is to write those into the baritone sax part since that's the only way they'll get played.
I had a sectional with my hard-working trumpet players tonight. They've come much further than I had imagined possible a few days ago. I think even they are kind of surprised. Understand, of course, that this is all relative, and the potential for disaster is high. But even so, I think they finally have a taste of what it means to play properly in an ensemble. They adjust to each other and sometimes even to the rest of the group and I can rely on them for eye contact in rehearsal which just warms my little heart. The army guys have vowed to practice reading this year so that they can keep up better.
I just turned down an invitation to spend the night at the guys dorm. I have a feeling it would turn into one long string of private lessons, and I have got to get some rest. And being coated in sulfur hardly makes me feel socially comfortable!
I first must say how moving some of the comments on the last post were to me. I am reminded again how lucky I feel to have such passionate and feeling friends and family. And I must say, I was playing a bit of the devil's advocate in the last post. As many of you know, I asked myself the question of whether I could put a life together without playing the french horn years ago and discovered the answer was an emphatic no-- I couldn't help but play. And in the past few years, I've found that, to a somewhat lesser degree, I cannot help but teach as well.
So I do what I do, and the students do what they do. From the moment I heard of the opportunity to be here, I think it was invevitable that I would come. And I have no regrets that I have.
That said, inspiring and fulfilling as it is to work with students who have so little opportunity, it is amusing to what degree we approach the same mix of attitudes and degrees of talent, seriousness, inflated self-perspective, and attitude that I would expect from any mix of high school and young college students. Of course, in this setting, the very normality of it is comforting and somewhat encouraging. We truly are so much more the same than we are different. Music is a wonderful high-level common denominator, but a lower-level one is the constitutional inability of a seventeen-year-old guy to read a dynamic or practice slowly! And I love it all.
Today was an interesting day for entirely different reasons. I may be wandering into the dangerous blog terrain of TMI, but it's an amusing story.
I have been alluding a little to a medical problem that I have been having. The short version, for those who haven't seen me recently, is this: I have been itching. All over. Intensely. All the time. This started about five weeks ago, and I haven't really had a decent night of sleep since then. I had been to three doctors in the US and they all had diagnosed it as some sort of allergy. They ruled out some of the scarier possibilities, like skin cancer and other umentionables, but none of them could come up with a diagnosis that made the slight different. No treatment seemed even to alleviate the itching, let alone cure it.
Well, sometimes it pays to hang out with a bunch of teachers who are used to third-world countries. It turns out I have a rather intense case of scabies. Definitely somewhat embarassing (although not so much that I don't write about it here), but such a relief to know that I have something treatable and that this will all be coming to an end.
Of course, being in Iraq, my treatment is a little old school. I went by the hospital this morning for the diagnosis and prescription. And so it is that I am now coated in an ointment made from 10% sulfur. The pharmacist mixed it up on the spot in a ramshackle old shop in the central bazaar in town. The doctor has told me that I may not shower or change clothes for the next three days, only add layers of this sulfurous stuff. Since our concert is Tuesday, that means that I have already donned my concert clothes and I they should be thoroughly imbued with sulfur by the time of the concert. This may put some conductor odor stories to shame! However, any kind of suffering will be worth it if it brings this miserable sleepless itching to a close.
Running around town to take care of the prescriptions and dealing with my clothing took up almost the whole morning, so wind class was cancelled. Band continues well. At tonight's teachers' meeting to plan the concert on Tuesday, I was proud to be able to say I could provide a fifteen-minute program and a big finish if they needed one. Except for the trombone solos in the Helmesberger. My homework is to write those into the baritone sax part since that's the only way they'll get played.
I had a sectional with my hard-working trumpet players tonight. They've come much further than I had imagined possible a few days ago. I think even they are kind of surprised. Understand, of course, that this is all relative, and the potential for disaster is high. But even so, I think they finally have a taste of what it means to play properly in an ensemble. They adjust to each other and sometimes even to the rest of the group and I can rely on them for eye contact in rehearsal which just warms my little heart. The army guys have vowed to practice reading this year so that they can keep up better.
I just turned down an invitation to spend the night at the guys dorm. I have a feeling it would turn into one long string of private lessons, and I have got to get some rest. And being coated in sulfur hardly makes me feel socially comfortable!
Saturday, July 12, 2008
More reflections
Carol McAnn, the theater teacher, told me a chilling story last night. Last summer, at the ballet academy, there was a ten-year-old girl from Baghdad who was really the star of the academy. She showed a huge amount of progress and potential and the teachers felt that she would ultimately be the core of a future Iraqi ballet program.
This past fall, after they returned to Baghdad, the girl and her whole family were killed by fundamentalists after they found out about the girl's dancing. The crime was sensationally brutal, even by Baghdadi standards-- in a city where extreme violence is the norm, the crime remained at the top of the headlines for a week.
This causes me to reconsider what we are doing here in a different light. As it is, I have been wondering how much good we are doing. Especially for the more talented students, I feel like we are holding out the promise of something which is really unattainable for them. It is nearly impossible to get a visa to leave here, even to study in another country, no matter how talented, and it seems unlikely that Suleimany or Kurdistan in general is going to have a viable classical music scene in this generation, even if it manages to remain peaceful and stable. Are we really doing them a favor to train them and instill this love for music in them?
The question gets infintely more complicated if we must worry that we are training them in a skill that might ultimately put them in danger. I don't know where my line of responsibility ends. Carol consoles herself with the fact that she brought so much joy and pride to the girl in the last summer of her life, but if I knew that my horn student would be killed for playing, I think that I would send him away and tell him to find another way to occupy his time. Since there is no way to know, I keep on teaching as best as I can and hope the consequences are mostly good.
Things continue well in these last few days at the academy. The band is improving remarkably and today I was able to announce that we would add the more difficult Danse Diabolique to the program. Smiles and and a spontaneous round of self-appreciative applause. An Iraqi television crew arrived in the middle of rehearsal to interview me. I gave them some boilerplate about how well the band had been prepared by Mr. Najat. Hopefully he remains an ally.
A funny incident in band rehearsal-- like any band director worth his salt, I have been cajoling and pleading for more dynamics almost unceasingly with sparse results. Today at break the clarinet section called me over to witness a presentation. Apparently they feel that one of their number has consistently failed to play anything but forte no matter how much I lean on them. So they presented him with a cheap charm necklace with a little "p" on it (for piano). He took it well, and it was a good laugh all around.
Tonight, my horn student, Goran; my translator, Fazil and one of their friends took me out for a bite to eat and to see a little more of Sulemani. We first went to an antique shop in the museum district. It was filled with dusty detritus from the past century and a half of occupation and wars here. Russian samovars, Turkish scimitars, coins from Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, old phonographs and rifles, photographs of a Kurdish martyr being hanged in Iran.... It was dusty and disorganized, but it gave a real sense of what this area has been through over the generations.
Afterwards, we went to the Zara market, a new and brightly lit supermarket filled with items both local and imported from Europe and America. Upstairs was a cafe serving both local and western-style items. I think Goran was a little disappointed when I opted to have Shwarma instead of "humburger" but I did get what the Kurds call "finger chips"-- french fries. Is that a british-ism?
Must be up bright and early tomorrow. We drop by the visa office as our ten-day tourist visa is about to run out!
This past fall, after they returned to Baghdad, the girl and her whole family were killed by fundamentalists after they found out about the girl's dancing. The crime was sensationally brutal, even by Baghdadi standards-- in a city where extreme violence is the norm, the crime remained at the top of the headlines for a week.
This causes me to reconsider what we are doing here in a different light. As it is, I have been wondering how much good we are doing. Especially for the more talented students, I feel like we are holding out the promise of something which is really unattainable for them. It is nearly impossible to get a visa to leave here, even to study in another country, no matter how talented, and it seems unlikely that Suleimany or Kurdistan in general is going to have a viable classical music scene in this generation, even if it manages to remain peaceful and stable. Are we really doing them a favor to train them and instill this love for music in them?
The question gets infintely more complicated if we must worry that we are training them in a skill that might ultimately put them in danger. I don't know where my line of responsibility ends. Carol consoles herself with the fact that she brought so much joy and pride to the girl in the last summer of her life, but if I knew that my horn student would be killed for playing, I think that I would send him away and tell him to find another way to occupy his time. Since there is no way to know, I keep on teaching as best as I can and hope the consequences are mostly good.
Things continue well in these last few days at the academy. The band is improving remarkably and today I was able to announce that we would add the more difficult Danse Diabolique to the program. Smiles and and a spontaneous round of self-appreciative applause. An Iraqi television crew arrived in the middle of rehearsal to interview me. I gave them some boilerplate about how well the band had been prepared by Mr. Najat. Hopefully he remains an ally.
A funny incident in band rehearsal-- like any band director worth his salt, I have been cajoling and pleading for more dynamics almost unceasingly with sparse results. Today at break the clarinet section called me over to witness a presentation. Apparently they feel that one of their number has consistently failed to play anything but forte no matter how much I lean on them. So they presented him with a cheap charm necklace with a little "p" on it (for piano). He took it well, and it was a good laugh all around.
Tonight, my horn student, Goran; my translator, Fazil and one of their friends took me out for a bite to eat and to see a little more of Sulemani. We first went to an antique shop in the museum district. It was filled with dusty detritus from the past century and a half of occupation and wars here. Russian samovars, Turkish scimitars, coins from Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, old phonographs and rifles, photographs of a Kurdish martyr being hanged in Iran.... It was dusty and disorganized, but it gave a real sense of what this area has been through over the generations.
Afterwards, we went to the Zara market, a new and brightly lit supermarket filled with items both local and imported from Europe and America. Upstairs was a cafe serving both local and western-style items. I think Goran was a little disappointed when I opted to have Shwarma instead of "humburger" but I did get what the Kurds call "finger chips"-- french fries. Is that a british-ism?
Must be up bright and early tomorrow. We drop by the visa office as our ten-day tourist visa is about to run out!
Friday, July 11, 2008
Meester Karrhorn
Today was the first friday in Iraq. Many shops are closed, but it was not a day off at the academy. However, the building where the theater and dance students have been rehearsing was closed, so the dancers took over the building where my normal woodwind class is in the morning. I took over in the lobby space of one of the buidlings. The dancers were supposed to tell my late-arriving students where I was but the communication didn't work out. So I had a very small class today. It was just as well, I like the groups anyhow.
At lunch I was reunited with my students (some of them very hurt that they had missed class). As time gets shorter here, a lot of them are collecting photos and e-mail addresses. I explained to a few of my students the simple pun in my e-mail address which they got a kick out of. A few of the mischievous ones now call me "Meester Karrhorn".
Band practice was more of the same today. Sound exercises, me begging and pleading with the trumpets and trombones, dynamics on occasion. I gave them a slightly earlier break than usual and was surprised that when I dismissed them they all remained silently in their seats. The silence was eerie and only explained when I turned around to leave and saw the dreaded Mr. Najat (the director of the Suleimani wind orchestra). I worried that I might be in trouble. Apparently he has a bit of a habit of undermining operations at the Unity Academy. And I was going behind his back a little in inviting other students who were not actually in the wind orchestra to play in the band. But I sweet-talked him for a bit, asking for input and thanking him for letting the "less-advanced" students play with the "strong and experienced" players of the wind orchestra. When I left the stage, he apparently gave them a lecture about being more respectful towards me in rehearsal, so I guess I'm not on his bad side yet....
I gave a long lesson to the trombone player today. I explained that although he was an experienced player, it was important to review basics. I flipped back to the first page of method book and began slogging through the introductory position exercises. I think that 20 minutes might have been the first time since he started the instrument that he played the actual notes written on the page with the correct rhythm. I wish I could have him every other day for a month to send him on the right path; I just have to hope that some of this sticks.
Goran, my horn player, got a present of slide grease and oil and a lesson on horn maintenance. His horn is a shoddily made Chinese instrument in despicable condition, but I did my best to show him how to keep it up. My last student was a saxophone player who just wanted more breathing exercises.
Now that I've been here a week, I feel like reflecting a little on what I have and haven't seen here in Sule. What was I expecting? I knew that this was a quiet city and that it was not as violent as the rest of the country. And truly, there are no visible signs of violence or war here. People move in the streets freely, there is certainly no damage, and there are plenty of new high rise construction sites-- hardly the mark of a city worried about collapsing into chaos. The population seems reasonably prosperous as well. Plenty of people shopping, lots of appliance shops and car dealerships, very few signs of poverty and homelessness in the sections of the city that I've seen.
On the other hand, my limited experience with the students from Kirkuk and people from other cities has made it very clear that the rest of the country is living at a high level of violence. I've heard too many disturbing and gruesome stories to ignore the fact that the problems are never far away here. Kirkuk, after all, is only a 45 minute drive.
Something I have not seen here: US soldiers. I don't know if there is any presence at all in Sule, but if so, it's very low key. Plenty of Iraqi army soldiers around, patrolling schools or political party headquarters, but even they seem pretty laid back. Most Kurds are highly appreciative of the American intervention here (especially the original one in 1991). They have nothing bad to say about George Bush. Another city not too far from here is Halabja, the Kurdish city gassed by Saddam in the 80's. There is no nostalgia at all for the old regime.
Another interesting thing to note is the position of women here. I've seen a few women in full-body covering and veil. More common is a simple veil casually over the hair. And plenty of women wear no veil at all. Revealing dresses and tight tee-shirts that any American teeny-bopper would feel comfortable in are seen freqently too, with no comment or raised eye-brow. On the other hand, it is clear that women are in general less visible in society. Almost all my students are men and women clearly don't usually feel comfortable in assertive situations.
One thing that has been completely unlike my experience in China is the fact that I blend in with the population. Kurds tend to be somewhat lighter than Arabs, and fair skin, light brown hair, and grey or green eyes are not uncommon. And many of them sport a... shall we say... Semitic proboscis. Add to the fact that the men tend to be very skinny (and pride themselves on it if my translator is an example) and I fit right in. I have even been asked for directions on the street, and I am addressed in Kurdish unless I speak English first.
This makes not being able to speak better Kurdish even more trying than it might be otherwise! My efforts are all appreciated and I have a little more every day but I will hardly be fluent by the time I leave.
Late here, more thoughts tomorrow.
PS. I have enabled comments for non-members on here in case anyone is dying to ask something or drop a line-- all comments have been greatly appreciated. Also, I have an APO address in Erbil for people interested to send materials. If you are interested and would like ideas on what would be most useful please let me know, through here, facebook, or at my regular e-mail. Thanks!
At lunch I was reunited with my students (some of them very hurt that they had missed class). As time gets shorter here, a lot of them are collecting photos and e-mail addresses. I explained to a few of my students the simple pun in my e-mail address which they got a kick out of. A few of the mischievous ones now call me "Meester Karrhorn".
Band practice was more of the same today. Sound exercises, me begging and pleading with the trumpets and trombones, dynamics on occasion. I gave them a slightly earlier break than usual and was surprised that when I dismissed them they all remained silently in their seats. The silence was eerie and only explained when I turned around to leave and saw the dreaded Mr. Najat (the director of the Suleimani wind orchestra). I worried that I might be in trouble. Apparently he has a bit of a habit of undermining operations at the Unity Academy. And I was going behind his back a little in inviting other students who were not actually in the wind orchestra to play in the band. But I sweet-talked him for a bit, asking for input and thanking him for letting the "less-advanced" students play with the "strong and experienced" players of the wind orchestra. When I left the stage, he apparently gave them a lecture about being more respectful towards me in rehearsal, so I guess I'm not on his bad side yet....
I gave a long lesson to the trombone player today. I explained that although he was an experienced player, it was important to review basics. I flipped back to the first page of method book and began slogging through the introductory position exercises. I think that 20 minutes might have been the first time since he started the instrument that he played the actual notes written on the page with the correct rhythm. I wish I could have him every other day for a month to send him on the right path; I just have to hope that some of this sticks.
Goran, my horn player, got a present of slide grease and oil and a lesson on horn maintenance. His horn is a shoddily made Chinese instrument in despicable condition, but I did my best to show him how to keep it up. My last student was a saxophone player who just wanted more breathing exercises.
Now that I've been here a week, I feel like reflecting a little on what I have and haven't seen here in Sule. What was I expecting? I knew that this was a quiet city and that it was not as violent as the rest of the country. And truly, there are no visible signs of violence or war here. People move in the streets freely, there is certainly no damage, and there are plenty of new high rise construction sites-- hardly the mark of a city worried about collapsing into chaos. The population seems reasonably prosperous as well. Plenty of people shopping, lots of appliance shops and car dealerships, very few signs of poverty and homelessness in the sections of the city that I've seen.
On the other hand, my limited experience with the students from Kirkuk and people from other cities has made it very clear that the rest of the country is living at a high level of violence. I've heard too many disturbing and gruesome stories to ignore the fact that the problems are never far away here. Kirkuk, after all, is only a 45 minute drive.
Something I have not seen here: US soldiers. I don't know if there is any presence at all in Sule, but if so, it's very low key. Plenty of Iraqi army soldiers around, patrolling schools or political party headquarters, but even they seem pretty laid back. Most Kurds are highly appreciative of the American intervention here (especially the original one in 1991). They have nothing bad to say about George Bush. Another city not too far from here is Halabja, the Kurdish city gassed by Saddam in the 80's. There is no nostalgia at all for the old regime.
Another interesting thing to note is the position of women here. I've seen a few women in full-body covering and veil. More common is a simple veil casually over the hair. And plenty of women wear no veil at all. Revealing dresses and tight tee-shirts that any American teeny-bopper would feel comfortable in are seen freqently too, with no comment or raised eye-brow. On the other hand, it is clear that women are in general less visible in society. Almost all my students are men and women clearly don't usually feel comfortable in assertive situations.
One thing that has been completely unlike my experience in China is the fact that I blend in with the population. Kurds tend to be somewhat lighter than Arabs, and fair skin, light brown hair, and grey or green eyes are not uncommon. And many of them sport a... shall we say... Semitic proboscis. Add to the fact that the men tend to be very skinny (and pride themselves on it if my translator is an example) and I fit right in. I have even been asked for directions on the street, and I am addressed in Kurdish unless I speak English first.
This makes not being able to speak better Kurdish even more trying than it might be otherwise! My efforts are all appreciated and I have a little more every day but I will hardly be fluent by the time I leave.
Late here, more thoughts tomorrow.
PS. I have enabled comments for non-members on here in case anyone is dying to ask something or drop a line-- all comments have been greatly appreciated. Also, I have an APO address in Erbil for people interested to send materials. If you are interested and would like ideas on what would be most useful please let me know, through here, facebook, or at my regular e-mail. Thanks!
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Clinics and Amusement Parks in Sule
In case anyone is wondering if I have lost all spelling skills, or am spending each day in a different city, know that the city I am staying in has a range of spellings and pronunciations. It has slightly different names in Arabic and Kurdish, and there is no consistent transliteration of either. Plus it is often called "Sule" for short. I have seen spellings ranging from the proper and somewhat grandiloquent "As-Suleimaniyaa" to the brief "Slemani".
Today was another action packed day. My breathing classes have gotten more and more popular, which is flattering, but there is a lot of attrition once we move into the masterclass segment of the class. It's okay-- I like the smaller group that is more serious, and I'm glad that everyone is taking breathing seriously.
[The next paragraph contains some descriptions of violence in other parts of Iraq]
One of my Kirkuki students came to me today to say good-bye-- he was going home to Kirkuk. He told me that he really wanted to stay but his brother had been injured in a bombing so he had to go. I expressed my shock and distress and sympathy, but he smiled at my translator who smiled at me and said "Don't be so worried-- this is normal for us in Kirkuk".
Suleimaniya has been essentially free from violence, and the city has a normal upbeat vibe to it, but evidence that we are in a war-torn country is definitely not far the surface. Several Iraqis have shown me videos of violence that they have taken with their cellphones. Last night, a guy showed me a video of men getting gunned down by snipers trying to cross a square in baghdad. And today, a student showed me a video from Kirkuk. "These are terrorists," he said, and showed me a video of a bunch of men lying on the ground in front of a wall. Suddenly a man walked across the line with a machine gun firing into them. Not a pleasant image.
Fortunately such things do not really intrude in our work at the academy. Daily sound work with the band is beginning to yield results that I can hear--I don't know if they're obvious to anyone else though. We will probably just do two short pieces in the final concert-- the arrangement of themes from Brahms 1 and the American river songs. I'd love to do the Danse Diabolique but the band isn't quite up to it. The five Iraqi army soldiers who constitute my trumpet section had a private session with me today. They earnestly explained how hard it was for them to read music, and I tried to offer some encouragement and ideas for learning techniques. Each suggestion was met with furrowed brows and very serious consideration. In the end, I expressed my gratitude for their army service and they lined up and shook hands with me. Nice chaps. They're all twice my size.
I also gave a lesson to my little nine year old piccolo player. His minuet in G was much closer to 3/4 today. I had Marc Thayer play it for him on the violin and he was suitably impressed. Marc is a great teacher and gave him some good info and help too. Now if only I knew enough about the piccolo to keep him from jumping the octave all the time...
Afterwards, it was off to the clinic. I had a mole removed from my back just before coming to Iraq, so the stitches had to come out. Also, I've developed a bit of nasty infection on the side of one finger here, so I needed some antibiotics. We went to a regular Iraqi street clinic. There was a doctor there, Arabic, who spoke English (although I had a translator with me in case), as well as a lame older gentleman mopping the floors. The doctor checked everything out, gave me the pills, then sent me into the other room. The guy who had been mopping dropped the mop, washed up, curtly had me remove my shirt ("Uff! Uff!"), broke out a razor blade, and gently and competently removed the stitches, disinfected the scar, and sent me on my way. I paid full price for the visit-- 10,000 Dinars-- around US$8.
I treated myself to a hearty dinner of schnitzel and hummus (one of the glories at Foodland, the fast food place across the street from the hotel). Then I spent the evening at a park in the hills on the outskirts of town. There was a hopping amusement park, with a ferris wheel and pirate ship ride (the ship was adorned with Arabian horses instead of pirates though). Our dancers were practicing their hip-hop moves in the park which attracted a small, bemused crowd of Iraqis. Back to the hotel late-- luckily, I have been sleeping through the night recently so I'm feeling better rested than I have in a while. And it's time for me to rest now. Cross your fingers on internet for me tomorrow!
PS. Many people have been asking about the possiblity of contributing music, instruments, accessories etc to the academy here. Marc, John and I are discussing the possibilities-- things here are rarely simple and we want to make sure that if something gets sent, it goes to the people who need it. But the thoughts are deeply appreciated and I hope we can use your help!
Today was another action packed day. My breathing classes have gotten more and more popular, which is flattering, but there is a lot of attrition once we move into the masterclass segment of the class. It's okay-- I like the smaller group that is more serious, and I'm glad that everyone is taking breathing seriously.
[The next paragraph contains some descriptions of violence in other parts of Iraq]
One of my Kirkuki students came to me today to say good-bye-- he was going home to Kirkuk. He told me that he really wanted to stay but his brother had been injured in a bombing so he had to go. I expressed my shock and distress and sympathy, but he smiled at my translator who smiled at me and said "Don't be so worried-- this is normal for us in Kirkuk".
Suleimaniya has been essentially free from violence, and the city has a normal upbeat vibe to it, but evidence that we are in a war-torn country is definitely not far the surface. Several Iraqis have shown me videos of violence that they have taken with their cellphones. Last night, a guy showed me a video of men getting gunned down by snipers trying to cross a square in baghdad. And today, a student showed me a video from Kirkuk. "These are terrorists," he said, and showed me a video of a bunch of men lying on the ground in front of a wall. Suddenly a man walked across the line with a machine gun firing into them. Not a pleasant image.
Fortunately such things do not really intrude in our work at the academy. Daily sound work with the band is beginning to yield results that I can hear--I don't know if they're obvious to anyone else though. We will probably just do two short pieces in the final concert-- the arrangement of themes from Brahms 1 and the American river songs. I'd love to do the Danse Diabolique but the band isn't quite up to it. The five Iraqi army soldiers who constitute my trumpet section had a private session with me today. They earnestly explained how hard it was for them to read music, and I tried to offer some encouragement and ideas for learning techniques. Each suggestion was met with furrowed brows and very serious consideration. In the end, I expressed my gratitude for their army service and they lined up and shook hands with me. Nice chaps. They're all twice my size.
I also gave a lesson to my little nine year old piccolo player. His minuet in G was much closer to 3/4 today. I had Marc Thayer play it for him on the violin and he was suitably impressed. Marc is a great teacher and gave him some good info and help too. Now if only I knew enough about the piccolo to keep him from jumping the octave all the time...
Afterwards, it was off to the clinic. I had a mole removed from my back just before coming to Iraq, so the stitches had to come out. Also, I've developed a bit of nasty infection on the side of one finger here, so I needed some antibiotics. We went to a regular Iraqi street clinic. There was a doctor there, Arabic, who spoke English (although I had a translator with me in case), as well as a lame older gentleman mopping the floors. The doctor checked everything out, gave me the pills, then sent me into the other room. The guy who had been mopping dropped the mop, washed up, curtly had me remove my shirt ("Uff! Uff!"), broke out a razor blade, and gently and competently removed the stitches, disinfected the scar, and sent me on my way. I paid full price for the visit-- 10,000 Dinars-- around US$8.
I treated myself to a hearty dinner of schnitzel and hummus (one of the glories at Foodland, the fast food place across the street from the hotel). Then I spent the evening at a park in the hills on the outskirts of town. There was a hopping amusement park, with a ferris wheel and pirate ship ride (the ship was adorned with Arabian horses instead of pirates though). Our dancers were practicing their hip-hop moves in the park which attracted a small, bemused crowd of Iraqis. Back to the hotel late-- luckily, I have been sleeping through the night recently so I'm feeling better rested than I have in a while. And it's time for me to rest now. Cross your fingers on internet for me tomorrow!
PS. Many people have been asking about the possiblity of contributing music, instruments, accessories etc to the academy here. Marc, John and I are discussing the possibilities-- things here are rarely simple and we want to make sure that if something gets sent, it goes to the people who need it. But the thoughts are deeply appreciated and I hope we can use your help!
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Small problems in Slemani
Greetings loyal readers and worried family members! Sorry about the hiatus in posts. Internet access, like the power grid in Iraq, can be iffy at times, and I just couldn't get online at the few times I've had free to post.
Teaching continues at an exhausting pace (although of course I never feel exhausted til we actually get home). I teach a wind class for two hours each morning, have a three hour rehearsal with the band in the afternoon, and then teach lessons in the evening until 9 or until my translator drops.
The kids here are hungry. Every moment that I am not actually running a class, they swamp me with questions about their instruments, beg for more method books, ask me for private lessons, and generally keep my head spinning with requests and advice. I'm keeping two notebooks to try to stay on top of things.
It would take me forever to recap everything from the last couple of days, so I just pick up with today-- it should give an idea of the pace and the atmosphere here.
Bayanit Bash! (good morning) Breakfast at hotel. Orange juice (sticky and sweet from concentrate), a kind of round Lebanese roll, and eggs. I put butter and honey on the roll-- there's also carrot jam and rose water jam available-- interesting, but after a couple of tries I'm back with the tasty Iranian honey.
The academy runs a bus from the hotel to the complex where we teach, but it's an easy fifteen minute walk so I use the opportunity to get some exercise. The streets are bustling; I pass a school, headquarters for one of the Kurdish political parties, and several roasting hot naan shops on the way over. I have to cross one major street on my way there; probably the single moment each day when my life is in the most danger. Iraqi streets have no traffic lights-- with the power constantly going off and on, what would be the point? The intersection in front of the school is manned by a team of traffic cops at least 16 hours a day.
I usually get to the school early enough that I can organize music that kids have requested from the day before. We have sixteen boxes of donated music here. The kids are eagerly copying every method book and solo they can get their hands on. A lot of the music is not actually useful though, and what we have is not comprehensive. The clarinets are crestfallen that we don't have more solos for them, and the flutes are disappointed that we have no method books. Everyone is happy with the shipment of reeds though, and I am happy to distribute the slide grease and valve oil that Osmun Brass kindly donated. All of the music is being catalogued and will be donated to institutions and libraries when we are finished here.
Chony! (hello) I usually begin my class with some breathing lessons. I wasn't sure how those would go over with this crowd but it's become a popular part of the day. I wish I had Sam Pilafian's repertoire of ideas for breathing but I'm trying to get creative. Then I move into a masterclass format. This is less popular and some kids have even griped that they are not participating enough, but with 20 kids at wildly different levels, from total rhythmic and tonal incompetence to professional potential, and my limited classroom skills, this seems the best way. I try to involve everyone as much as I can and I'm nothing if not a storyteller in the classroom so my loyal translator Vasim is really kept on his toes.
Bash ni-e! (not good) Lunchtime seems a good time to mention a couple of the problems we've been having, because lunch is one of them. The catering is provided by some company that American Voices was forced to hire for political reasons. It consists of some kind of Iranian flatbread which makes cardboard seem tender and flavorful, rice and a vegetable. Today it was okra. No matter how hungry I am, the lunch leaves me cold, so my calorie intake is dropping.
Another problem has been lack of rooms. A couple days ago I might have mentioned that I would have an office to work in. Fantasy. The building with offices has been declared off limits by the political branch in residence there, so we are left scrambling for any available space. My wind class is now in what we call the "garage", a decrept building with a makeshift stage, leaning walls, and a fan-studded ceiling that continually drops bits (and occasionally slabs) of plaster onto the group. No air-conditioning or windows. The portable airblower we brought in is noisy and dirty, and anyway during the regular blackouts doesn't work, so that we are plunged into stifling blackness for a minute or two. (The students whip out their cellphones to provide a little light).
After lunch I have the luxury of being on stage, where I am conducting the band. It is largely a pre-formed ensemble called the Sulemani Wind Orchestra, supplemented by the students that I have begged to play. The conductor of the band, Mr. Najat is apparently a rather politically powerful and short-tempered figure and some students are afraid that they will get in trouble if they play in the group without his permission, even when I am conducting. I've met Mr. Najat and he has been gracious to me, so we'll hope there are no lasting repercussions.
The group still consists of the following: six reasonably competent flute players (and piccolo that I have yet to actually hear audibly when the band is playing), seven clarinets of varying skills. My best clarinetist, Akam, plays baritone sax, where he is seriously needed (there would be no bass in the band otherwise). I have an earnest tenor sax and an alto sax who always wears a baseball cap but plays more or less correctly if I glare at him. Oh yes, TWO oboes. One of them is not entirely clueless. Oboe is tough as reeds and decent instrument maintenance is hard to come by here. A bassoon appeared today, to my great joy.
I have a trombonist-- disaster! Doesn't know his positions and plays random notes (I mentioned him in my last posting). I've been breathing down his neck but he has taken it well. Today, he took me aside, and in broken English said, "Mr. Andrew, I love you! You are my rose!" Very heartwarming, and probably the most romancing I'll ever get from a trombone player! Gene, (the other wind teacher) and I have been giving him no end of trouble and now he occasionally plays in rhythm, so I guess he is appreciative.
After band I teach a series of lessons. I have one horn player, but I've given two people intro-to-horn lessons. I've also taught a nine-year-old piccolo player Minuet in G (well, the proper rhythm for it), and several trumpet players. I wrapped up today helping the really good clarinet player start to work out the Mozart Clarinet concerto. Tons of fun.
Well, this entry has gone on, to make up for the last few days. Obviously there's more to tell. Hopefully, internet will be up tomorrow as well and I won't fall behind again.
Thanks all for posting comments or e-mailing about the blog! It's nice to know that I'm not writing for the ether. Any feedback or communication is most welcome. I haven't figured out how to post photos with captions here, so I may soon begin adding them to a special folder on my facebook page. Keep an eye out!
Teaching continues at an exhausting pace (although of course I never feel exhausted til we actually get home). I teach a wind class for two hours each morning, have a three hour rehearsal with the band in the afternoon, and then teach lessons in the evening until 9 or until my translator drops.
The kids here are hungry. Every moment that I am not actually running a class, they swamp me with questions about their instruments, beg for more method books, ask me for private lessons, and generally keep my head spinning with requests and advice. I'm keeping two notebooks to try to stay on top of things.
It would take me forever to recap everything from the last couple of days, so I just pick up with today-- it should give an idea of the pace and the atmosphere here.
Bayanit Bash! (good morning) Breakfast at hotel. Orange juice (sticky and sweet from concentrate), a kind of round Lebanese roll, and eggs. I put butter and honey on the roll-- there's also carrot jam and rose water jam available-- interesting, but after a couple of tries I'm back with the tasty Iranian honey.
The academy runs a bus from the hotel to the complex where we teach, but it's an easy fifteen minute walk so I use the opportunity to get some exercise. The streets are bustling; I pass a school, headquarters for one of the Kurdish political parties, and several roasting hot naan shops on the way over. I have to cross one major street on my way there; probably the single moment each day when my life is in the most danger. Iraqi streets have no traffic lights-- with the power constantly going off and on, what would be the point? The intersection in front of the school is manned by a team of traffic cops at least 16 hours a day.
I usually get to the school early enough that I can organize music that kids have requested from the day before. We have sixteen boxes of donated music here. The kids are eagerly copying every method book and solo they can get their hands on. A lot of the music is not actually useful though, and what we have is not comprehensive. The clarinets are crestfallen that we don't have more solos for them, and the flutes are disappointed that we have no method books. Everyone is happy with the shipment of reeds though, and I am happy to distribute the slide grease and valve oil that Osmun Brass kindly donated. All of the music is being catalogued and will be donated to institutions and libraries when we are finished here.
Chony! (hello) I usually begin my class with some breathing lessons. I wasn't sure how those would go over with this crowd but it's become a popular part of the day. I wish I had Sam Pilafian's repertoire of ideas for breathing but I'm trying to get creative. Then I move into a masterclass format. This is less popular and some kids have even griped that they are not participating enough, but with 20 kids at wildly different levels, from total rhythmic and tonal incompetence to professional potential, and my limited classroom skills, this seems the best way. I try to involve everyone as much as I can and I'm nothing if not a storyteller in the classroom so my loyal translator Vasim is really kept on his toes.
Bash ni-e! (not good) Lunchtime seems a good time to mention a couple of the problems we've been having, because lunch is one of them. The catering is provided by some company that American Voices was forced to hire for political reasons. It consists of some kind of Iranian flatbread which makes cardboard seem tender and flavorful, rice and a vegetable. Today it was okra. No matter how hungry I am, the lunch leaves me cold, so my calorie intake is dropping.
Another problem has been lack of rooms. A couple days ago I might have mentioned that I would have an office to work in. Fantasy. The building with offices has been declared off limits by the political branch in residence there, so we are left scrambling for any available space. My wind class is now in what we call the "garage", a decrept building with a makeshift stage, leaning walls, and a fan-studded ceiling that continually drops bits (and occasionally slabs) of plaster onto the group. No air-conditioning or windows. The portable airblower we brought in is noisy and dirty, and anyway during the regular blackouts doesn't work, so that we are plunged into stifling blackness for a minute or two. (The students whip out their cellphones to provide a little light).
After lunch I have the luxury of being on stage, where I am conducting the band. It is largely a pre-formed ensemble called the Sulemani Wind Orchestra, supplemented by the students that I have begged to play. The conductor of the band, Mr. Najat is apparently a rather politically powerful and short-tempered figure and some students are afraid that they will get in trouble if they play in the group without his permission, even when I am conducting. I've met Mr. Najat and he has been gracious to me, so we'll hope there are no lasting repercussions.
The group still consists of the following: six reasonably competent flute players (and piccolo that I have yet to actually hear audibly when the band is playing), seven clarinets of varying skills. My best clarinetist, Akam, plays baritone sax, where he is seriously needed (there would be no bass in the band otherwise). I have an earnest tenor sax and an alto sax who always wears a baseball cap but plays more or less correctly if I glare at him. Oh yes, TWO oboes. One of them is not entirely clueless. Oboe is tough as reeds and decent instrument maintenance is hard to come by here. A bassoon appeared today, to my great joy.
I have a trombonist-- disaster! Doesn't know his positions and plays random notes (I mentioned him in my last posting). I've been breathing down his neck but he has taken it well. Today, he took me aside, and in broken English said, "Mr. Andrew, I love you! You are my rose!" Very heartwarming, and probably the most romancing I'll ever get from a trombone player! Gene, (the other wind teacher) and I have been giving him no end of trouble and now he occasionally plays in rhythm, so I guess he is appreciative.
After band I teach a series of lessons. I have one horn player, but I've given two people intro-to-horn lessons. I've also taught a nine-year-old piccolo player Minuet in G (well, the proper rhythm for it), and several trumpet players. I wrapped up today helping the really good clarinet player start to work out the Mozart Clarinet concerto. Tons of fun.
Well, this entry has gone on, to make up for the last few days. Obviously there's more to tell. Hopefully, internet will be up tomorrow as well and I won't fall behind again.
Thanks all for posting comments or e-mailing about the blog! It's nice to know that I'm not writing for the ether. Any feedback or communication is most welcome. I haven't figured out how to post photos with captions here, so I may soon begin adding them to a special folder on my facebook page. Keep an eye out!
Sunday, July 6, 2008
1st day of classes, Suleimaniya
Yek! Du! Se! Chwar! Yek! Du! Se! Chwar!
There's nothing like a day of band rehearsals to teach you how to count to 4 in a new language.
Today was the first day working with the Kurdish students. It was a blast!
My first masterclass was at 10 this morning, in the room with the pastel sofas. I was nervous. Nothing will rack a french horn player's nerves like being faced down by a dozen expectant clarinet and flute players! I had each of them play solos in masterclass style, and quickly found that I had something to say to each of them. They were an ideal crowd, hanging attentively on everything. And they were so hungry to learn! We had brought boxes of methods and textbooks, and the kids just scrambled for them. It hurt to tell them that the books were not mine to give away, even for making copies. Each one of the books was fawned over and admired and it's clear they don't have a lot of access to materials at all here. I threw as much knowledge as I could at them and they seemed to be trying to absorb it as best they could. I had a Kurdish translator who unfortunately was not a musician, but he did his best to get across my concepts, and the rest I pantomimed or used my rapidly expanding Kurdish vocabulary. (I forget how effective immersion is for learning a language fast).
The level of the kids ranged greatly, as did their ages. I had some real young'uns who were probably 15 or 16, and most were probably college-aged. But there was even an older gentleman who was probably in his 40's or older, who was a teacher but seemed as eager to learn as the kids. I had a clarinetist who made a very effective stab at the slow movement of the Mozart Concerto, but I also had a trombonist who didn't know his positions to get through the first half of Ode to Joy. He actually tried to tell me that his trombone couldn't play the notes. (Of all instruments-- you just slide around 'til you get them, right?). I actually took the trombone from and started figuring out the positions. A real trombone player would probably have shuddered, but at least I got him playing in the right key.
My students mostly came from Raniya, another city in Kurdistan, and a couple from Kirkuk, an oil city about 40 miles from here torn up by ethnic tensions between the native Kurds and imported Iraqi Arabs. No girls-- there are a few in the school as a whole, but none playing wind instruments.
Lunch was served in a cafeteria at the hall. My woodwind players, sweeter than the syrupy sweet tea they drink here, insisted on saving a seat so that I could sit with them. This despite that we essentially could not communicate at all except through random words and sign language. Looking at the crowd of teenagers chatting and eating excitedly, it was very difficult to imagine the difficulties that so many of them have been living through for many years.
After lunch I ran a rehearsal of the Kurdish Wind Symphony. A motley crew of four flutes, four clarinets, an oboe, four saxophones, and six disastrous trumpet players, this is where I learned to shout out Kurdish numbers. We read through a simple arrangement of themes from the last movement of Brahms 1st Symphony, and then a more difficult arrangement of the "Danse Diabolique" by Hellmesberger. Lots of stop and go and threatening looks from me to the trumpet players (shades of USF brass ensemble!). But all in good fun and again, a great attitude and an earnestness that warms any teacher's heart. (Don't worry, my USF-ers, I get it from you sometimes too.) Tomorrow, more masterclasses, chamber music rehearsals, band work AND private lessons. It's a heavy-duty schedule for us, made a little tougher by my current inability to get a full night's rest. But I didn't feel the slightest exhaustion when I was at work with the students.
I had dinner tonight with the dancing/acting teachers. We went to a restaurant in another part of the city called, strangely, Eiffel restaurant. More tasty Kurdish kebab and hommus, some kind of lemony spice to rub it in and huge pieces of naan to scoop the whole thing up. Great stuff. Also neat to move around the city a little bit. Suleimaniya is surrounded by mountains, some of which form the border with Iran less than 30 miles away. We are right in the geopolitical heart of the middle East here.
There's nothing like a day of band rehearsals to teach you how to count to 4 in a new language.
Today was the first day working with the Kurdish students. It was a blast!
My first masterclass was at 10 this morning, in the room with the pastel sofas. I was nervous. Nothing will rack a french horn player's nerves like being faced down by a dozen expectant clarinet and flute players! I had each of them play solos in masterclass style, and quickly found that I had something to say to each of them. They were an ideal crowd, hanging attentively on everything. And they were so hungry to learn! We had brought boxes of methods and textbooks, and the kids just scrambled for them. It hurt to tell them that the books were not mine to give away, even for making copies. Each one of the books was fawned over and admired and it's clear they don't have a lot of access to materials at all here. I threw as much knowledge as I could at them and they seemed to be trying to absorb it as best they could. I had a Kurdish translator who unfortunately was not a musician, but he did his best to get across my concepts, and the rest I pantomimed or used my rapidly expanding Kurdish vocabulary. (I forget how effective immersion is for learning a language fast).
The level of the kids ranged greatly, as did their ages. I had some real young'uns who were probably 15 or 16, and most were probably college-aged. But there was even an older gentleman who was probably in his 40's or older, who was a teacher but seemed as eager to learn as the kids. I had a clarinetist who made a very effective stab at the slow movement of the Mozart Concerto, but I also had a trombonist who didn't know his positions to get through the first half of Ode to Joy. He actually tried to tell me that his trombone couldn't play the notes. (Of all instruments-- you just slide around 'til you get them, right?). I actually took the trombone from and started figuring out the positions. A real trombone player would probably have shuddered, but at least I got him playing in the right key.
My students mostly came from Raniya, another city in Kurdistan, and a couple from Kirkuk, an oil city about 40 miles from here torn up by ethnic tensions between the native Kurds and imported Iraqi Arabs. No girls-- there are a few in the school as a whole, but none playing wind instruments.
Lunch was served in a cafeteria at the hall. My woodwind players, sweeter than the syrupy sweet tea they drink here, insisted on saving a seat so that I could sit with them. This despite that we essentially could not communicate at all except through random words and sign language. Looking at the crowd of teenagers chatting and eating excitedly, it was very difficult to imagine the difficulties that so many of them have been living through for many years.
After lunch I ran a rehearsal of the Kurdish Wind Symphony. A motley crew of four flutes, four clarinets, an oboe, four saxophones, and six disastrous trumpet players, this is where I learned to shout out Kurdish numbers. We read through a simple arrangement of themes from the last movement of Brahms 1st Symphony, and then a more difficult arrangement of the "Danse Diabolique" by Hellmesberger. Lots of stop and go and threatening looks from me to the trumpet players (shades of USF brass ensemble!). But all in good fun and again, a great attitude and an earnestness that warms any teacher's heart. (Don't worry, my USF-ers, I get it from you sometimes too.) Tomorrow, more masterclasses, chamber music rehearsals, band work AND private lessons. It's a heavy-duty schedule for us, made a little tougher by my current inability to get a full night's rest. But I didn't feel the slightest exhaustion when I was at work with the students.
I had dinner tonight with the dancing/acting teachers. We went to a restaurant in another part of the city called, strangely, Eiffel restaurant. More tasty Kurdish kebab and hommus, some kind of lemony spice to rub it in and huge pieces of naan to scoop the whole thing up. Great stuff. Also neat to move around the city a little bit. Suleimaniya is surrounded by mountains, some of which form the border with Iran less than 30 miles away. We are right in the geopolitical heart of the middle East here.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Sulemani, day 1
Today was the last relaxed day before the academy goes full swing tomorrow. A lot of sitting around waiting. The theater/dance facilities and music facilities are in separate buildings, and the dance teachers spent most of the day checking out their spot. Late in the afternoon, we musicians got to see where we'll be working.
As far as I can tell, the place is mostly a movie house. There was a show going on when we came in (a security guard aplogetically patted us down) but we wandered around the somewhat dingy building to see the other rooms. Not exactly A-1 facilities but I've seen worse in China. One room was filled with orange and green pastel furniture which might have looked trendy in a college dorm room but seemed a little sad and out of place in the employees lounge of a movie theater. I apparently will have a little office when I'm not actually conducting larger ensembles.
Believe it or not, it still isn't clear to me what, or who, I will be actually teaching tomorrow. All I know is that so far I haven't felt qualified to do ANYTHING that anyone has asked me to do. Teach trombones? Sure, but I won't be much help with the positions. Clarinet? Ditto, for the fingerings. Conduct a string orchestra? Sure, but I'm not going to be teaching string techniques. The only thing that I gave an unqualified "NO" to was teaching the jazz band. I can fake many things, but jazz isn't one of them.
A tasty meal of roast lamb and various kinds of hommus this evening. Tomorrow is the first day of teaching, hopefully I will be able to rest well.
As far as I can tell, the place is mostly a movie house. There was a show going on when we came in (a security guard aplogetically patted us down) but we wandered around the somewhat dingy building to see the other rooms. Not exactly A-1 facilities but I've seen worse in China. One room was filled with orange and green pastel furniture which might have looked trendy in a college dorm room but seemed a little sad and out of place in the employees lounge of a movie theater. I apparently will have a little office when I'm not actually conducting larger ensembles.
Believe it or not, it still isn't clear to me what, or who, I will be actually teaching tomorrow. All I know is that so far I haven't felt qualified to do ANYTHING that anyone has asked me to do. Teach trombones? Sure, but I won't be much help with the positions. Clarinet? Ditto, for the fingerings. Conduct a string orchestra? Sure, but I'm not going to be teaching string techniques. The only thing that I gave an unqualified "NO" to was teaching the jazz band. I can fake many things, but jazz isn't one of them.
A tasty meal of roast lamb and various kinds of hommus this evening. Tomorrow is the first day of teaching, hopefully I will be able to rest well.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Arrival in Sulemaniya 07-04-08
Greetings friends and readers! This is the first of what I hope will be daily entries on my experiences teaching at the American Voices summer academy in Sule and Arbil, Iraq. This is for all my friends who have been asking for details on my experiences here and for anyone else who might be interested in impressions of Iraq from the perspective of a musician and teacher in Kurdistan. I have never kept a blog before, nor even read one, so I apologize for the violation of any blog conventions. Responses, questions and suggestions will always be welcome.
For those of you who don’t know the details, these are the circumstances of my employment here in Iraq for the summer. My old friend Marc Thayer, with whom I worked in the New World Symphony, sent out a general call for teachers to come work for the American Voices program here. Those of you who know my adventure urge won’t be surprised that I jumped at the idea of coming to work in such an unusual and important place. Although the call was generally for string and woodwind players I let Marc know that I would be interested in coming and that I felt my international experiences gave me something of a qualification for the work. Marc is nothing if not a doer—within hours of his conversation I was on the phone with John Ferguson, who runs the program from Bangkok, Thailand, and my summer plans were suddenly quite changed. My regular summer employer, the Colorado Music Festival, graciously allowed me a summer off, and I was good to go!
This trip started under perhaps a set of inauspicious circumstances. From my last goodbye to my mother under a crashing thunderstorm in Boston, to the absentminded (and typical) forgetting of my cellphone on the Fung Wah bus (they roll their eyes but they get your stuff back to you), to an irritating and undiagnosed medical ailment and stitches hanging out of my back… if I was a believer in signs I might have held off. But I’m not, and after an overnight at the Hotel Suze in NYC (thanks Suze for unflagging friendship, hospitality and life support in general!), I was ready for the journey to Iraq.
Believe it or not, there are regular commercial flights to Erbil, the nominal capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, on Austrian Air. I arrived at the airport neurotically early, as is my wont, but found myself standing next to a cellist in line at the check-in counter. This was James Nacy, another teacher at the academy. We struck up a conversation immediately and I was glad to have a colleague with me on the trip.
Austrian Air seems to specialize in flying to hotspots around the world. There were other people connecting to Erbil, but the majority of people on the flight, including my seatmate, were bound for Prstina, Kosovo. I felt less daring for flying to Erbil. Although there was also the woman boarding next to me who was bound for a bachelorette party in Innsbruck (ladies, if you have a bachelorette party in Innsbruck, I want in!). Oddly enough, she had studied at the JFK academy in Berlin and we realized that I had probably sung for her there when my youth chorus was on tour there in ‘94, my senior year of high school!
The flight to Vienna passed quickly. My years of trans-Pacific travel mean that a flight of less than 10 hours feels short. The Vienna airport was less than charming. In fact, it was downright disappointing. I’m ashamed to say that my first drink in Vienna was a blended juice frappucino from the airport Starbucks. 10 dollars! Strong Euro and weak dollar is rough. I also dropped by a dreadfully kitschy shop called (brace yourselves, purists) Mostly Mozart. And the sheet music that provided a background to the sign wasn’t even Mozart—it was a ragtime! However, I got to reactive my German and was pleased that it came in handy a couple times. I even had a couple brief translating moments. In Vienna, we met up with Marc Thayer and the drama teacher for the academy, Carol McAnn, who were arriving from St Louis and Houston respectively. Marc of course was an old friend. Carol McAnn is just exactly what you’d expect from a children’s drama teacher-- a bundle of enthusiasm and, well—drama. She decked herself out in red, white and blue sequins for the holiday.
Then there was the flight to Erbil. Most people on it were clearly ethnic Kurds, although many of them seemed to hold passports to various Scandinavian countries. One Danish Kurd standing next to James and me in line, became emotional when he saw that we were Americans. “Americans are all heroes” he insisted and he even began to cry a little. An interesting encounter for this Iraq-war skeptic. It turns out that he had left Iraq in 1992 as an illegal refugee and this was his first trip back since then. No wonder emotions were so strong. My seatmate on the flight became the first victim of my extremely limited Kurdish language skills. When he moved aside for me to sit down, I gave him a hearty “zor supas”—“thank you very much”! It got a big smile and we struck up a conversation. His English was limited but he was a Swedish citizen so we used both English and Swedish to chat. He was from Suleimaniya and reassured me that it was a much better city than Erbil. The Kurds are nothing if not nationally AND regionally proud. From my window seat I was able to see the city of Erbil as we circled for a landing. I’m looking forward to visiting it. The whole city is laid out in concentric circles around the “Citadel”—supposedly the longest continuously inhabited building in the world (some 6,000 years!).
The Erbil airport was tidy, small, and very quiet. The terminal was brand spanking new and very clean. Customs was slow but no particular problems. We were met by Michael, the dance instructor and assistant director for the program and with the aid of a small army of porters (we had sixteen crates of music, props, and costumes) we were loaded into a set of minivans for our caravan to Sulemaniya. I was told to board any of the five minivans, but when I clambered into the first one I discovered a lot of junk underfoot—it turned out to be AK 47’s! I was quickly told that was actually our security detail’s van and I ought to ride in a different one. Guns, and people carrying guns, are very common here. Having spent some time in Israel where the situation is similar, I didn’t find it as disconcerting as I might have.
The three hour drive to Sulemaniya was beautiful. A very scenic mountain drive over several passes. The scenery reminded me strongly of western Colorado or the Guadalupe mountains in west texas—dry, shrubby and eroded mountains. We made a brief stop in the town of Dukan in one of the valleys before arrival in Sulemaniya. There we settled into the Shahram hotel. I have a tiny and windowless room with a pistol on the wall. Bathrooms are Western style except that there is no separate shower stall—just a spigot mounted on the wall and drains in the floor. We had a mini-celebration of my birthday with delicious baklava and rosewater custard.
Tomorrow we visit the teaching site in preparation for the beginning of classes the next day.
For those of you who don’t know the details, these are the circumstances of my employment here in Iraq for the summer. My old friend Marc Thayer, with whom I worked in the New World Symphony, sent out a general call for teachers to come work for the American Voices program here. Those of you who know my adventure urge won’t be surprised that I jumped at the idea of coming to work in such an unusual and important place. Although the call was generally for string and woodwind players I let Marc know that I would be interested in coming and that I felt my international experiences gave me something of a qualification for the work. Marc is nothing if not a doer—within hours of his conversation I was on the phone with John Ferguson, who runs the program from Bangkok, Thailand, and my summer plans were suddenly quite changed. My regular summer employer, the Colorado Music Festival, graciously allowed me a summer off, and I was good to go!
This trip started under perhaps a set of inauspicious circumstances. From my last goodbye to my mother under a crashing thunderstorm in Boston, to the absentminded (and typical) forgetting of my cellphone on the Fung Wah bus (they roll their eyes but they get your stuff back to you), to an irritating and undiagnosed medical ailment and stitches hanging out of my back… if I was a believer in signs I might have held off. But I’m not, and after an overnight at the Hotel Suze in NYC (thanks Suze for unflagging friendship, hospitality and life support in general!), I was ready for the journey to Iraq.
Believe it or not, there are regular commercial flights to Erbil, the nominal capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, on Austrian Air. I arrived at the airport neurotically early, as is my wont, but found myself standing next to a cellist in line at the check-in counter. This was James Nacy, another teacher at the academy. We struck up a conversation immediately and I was glad to have a colleague with me on the trip.
Austrian Air seems to specialize in flying to hotspots around the world. There were other people connecting to Erbil, but the majority of people on the flight, including my seatmate, were bound for Prstina, Kosovo. I felt less daring for flying to Erbil. Although there was also the woman boarding next to me who was bound for a bachelorette party in Innsbruck (ladies, if you have a bachelorette party in Innsbruck, I want in!). Oddly enough, she had studied at the JFK academy in Berlin and we realized that I had probably sung for her there when my youth chorus was on tour there in ‘94, my senior year of high school!
The flight to Vienna passed quickly. My years of trans-Pacific travel mean that a flight of less than 10 hours feels short. The Vienna airport was less than charming. In fact, it was downright disappointing. I’m ashamed to say that my first drink in Vienna was a blended juice frappucino from the airport Starbucks. 10 dollars! Strong Euro and weak dollar is rough. I also dropped by a dreadfully kitschy shop called (brace yourselves, purists) Mostly Mozart. And the sheet music that provided a background to the sign wasn’t even Mozart—it was a ragtime! However, I got to reactive my German and was pleased that it came in handy a couple times. I even had a couple brief translating moments. In Vienna, we met up with Marc Thayer and the drama teacher for the academy, Carol McAnn, who were arriving from St Louis and Houston respectively. Marc of course was an old friend. Carol McAnn is just exactly what you’d expect from a children’s drama teacher-- a bundle of enthusiasm and, well—drama. She decked herself out in red, white and blue sequins for the holiday.
Then there was the flight to Erbil. Most people on it were clearly ethnic Kurds, although many of them seemed to hold passports to various Scandinavian countries. One Danish Kurd standing next to James and me in line, became emotional when he saw that we were Americans. “Americans are all heroes” he insisted and he even began to cry a little. An interesting encounter for this Iraq-war skeptic. It turns out that he had left Iraq in 1992 as an illegal refugee and this was his first trip back since then. No wonder emotions were so strong. My seatmate on the flight became the first victim of my extremely limited Kurdish language skills. When he moved aside for me to sit down, I gave him a hearty “zor supas”—“thank you very much”! It got a big smile and we struck up a conversation. His English was limited but he was a Swedish citizen so we used both English and Swedish to chat. He was from Suleimaniya and reassured me that it was a much better city than Erbil. The Kurds are nothing if not nationally AND regionally proud. From my window seat I was able to see the city of Erbil as we circled for a landing. I’m looking forward to visiting it. The whole city is laid out in concentric circles around the “Citadel”—supposedly the longest continuously inhabited building in the world (some 6,000 years!).
The Erbil airport was tidy, small, and very quiet. The terminal was brand spanking new and very clean. Customs was slow but no particular problems. We were met by Michael, the dance instructor and assistant director for the program and with the aid of a small army of porters (we had sixteen crates of music, props, and costumes) we were loaded into a set of minivans for our caravan to Sulemaniya. I was told to board any of the five minivans, but when I clambered into the first one I discovered a lot of junk underfoot—it turned out to be AK 47’s! I was quickly told that was actually our security detail’s van and I ought to ride in a different one. Guns, and people carrying guns, are very common here. Having spent some time in Israel where the situation is similar, I didn’t find it as disconcerting as I might have.
The three hour drive to Sulemaniya was beautiful. A very scenic mountain drive over several passes. The scenery reminded me strongly of western Colorado or the Guadalupe mountains in west texas—dry, shrubby and eroded mountains. We made a brief stop in the town of Dukan in one of the valleys before arrival in Sulemaniya. There we settled into the Shahram hotel. I have a tiny and windowless room with a pistol on the wall. Bathrooms are Western style except that there is no separate shower stall—just a spigot mounted on the wall and drains in the floor. We had a mini-celebration of my birthday with delicious baklava and rosewater custard.
Tomorrow we visit the teaching site in preparation for the beginning of classes the next day.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)