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.