I met Gregor, a young musician from Frankfurt, who lives in Ramallah and teaches music at the Barenboim-Said Foundation and also in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, for a walk around the walls of the Old City on our way to Silwan. He introduced me to the Silwan Ta’aze Music School in Silwan, Wadi Hilweh area. There we met Danny Felsteiner and his wife Fabienne van Eck. They instruct about 100 local children the basics of music, theory, rhythm and dance, with simple objects and classical instruments. I participated in 2 x 45-minute classes with the younger children, aged 5 to about 12, and joined in the various exercises. Danny played the guitar, Gregor his very impressive flute, and Fabienne danced and sang – all in Arabic, of which I understood nothing. But it was great fun being fully accepted by the children. The school teaches piano, daf, violin, cello, oud, guitar and darbuka/tabla; the instruments are lent to the children, who are really eager to participate in the program.
The children listen intently during rhythm exercises.
Danny and Gregor.
Dancing with the children.
The efforts of the music school are supported by the Dutch Stiching Prelude Foundation, Amsterdam „creating playgrounds in the middle east“, which was founded by the couple.The school is also financed by the Dutch “Kinderpostzegels”, an organization which sells „stamps“ door-to-door in Holland as donations to the school. The music school is part of the Madaa Silwan Creative Center, established in 2007, which offers subsidized courses and classes for children and youth in music, art, theater, dabke (Palestinian traditional dance) and languages.
Words against Walls 