Palestine Mozart Festival

INTRODUCTION

One of the largest collaborative arts events ever staged in the Occupied Territories, the 2007 Palestine Mozart Festival was the result of a partnership between several Palestinian and European organisations. The Choir of London hosted the Festival in partnership with the Kamandjâti Association, the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music (ESNCM), and Nablus the Culture. Additional organisational support was provided by the Franco-German Cultural Centre in Ramallah.

Planned over the course of two years, the project built on the success of a Palestine Bach Festival staged in Ramallah and Bethlehem in 2004. This scope of the 2007 Mozart Festival was considerably broader, bringing together over 150 Palestinian and international performers for a series of 19 public events held in Jerusalem, Ramallah, Bethlehem and Nablus over a two-week period.

The Festival also featured a series of educational events, ranging from introductions to opera for schoolchildren to instrumental masterclasses for advanced students.

Festival events proved extremely popular, with total attendance over the two-week period reaching over 3,200 people. Ticket prices were generally kept to a nominal minimum, thus ensuring that concerts were accessible to local audiences. Special arrangements were made for music students to enable them to attend events free of charge.

The project served to introduce many European artists to Palestine for the first time, and to reinforce connections to the region for those performers who had visited previously. The reach of the Festival was greatly extended by a very enthusiastic media response, with broad press, radio and television coverage both locally and internationally.

Click here for a gallery of images from the Festival.