Following in the footsteps of our earlier article about Karim Wasfi and his grassroots, El-Sistema-inspired orchestral program in Iraq is this Wednesday’s Bow about the next chapter in Iraq’s musical development. The Iraqi National Youth Orchestra is one of the least-known youth ensembles in today’s classical music scene. It is by no means the longest-running or the largest–in fact, it was founded in 2008 and today counts its members at a meager 45 young musicians. Despite its relative youth as an organization, the INYO has endured enough hardships and dangers for a dozen organizations, earning its nickname as the “world’s bravest orchestra.” This courageous group of musicians has moved, against all odds and with remarkable speed, from its perilous beginnings to the world stage, and it will be giving its first performances outside Iraq in the coming week.
Iraq, as those who have followed world politics will know, has not always been the war-torn danger zone that is is today and was even more in the past few years. In fact, Iraq’s classical music tradition stretches back to more prosperous times long before the recent wars. The state of musical affairs in the nation today belies the deep classical roots that existed in the country before conflict ravaged the cultural life of the country: in 1948, Iraq formed the first national orchestra in the Middle East and founded the region’s first music school in Baghdad. While music flourished in Iraq for some time, the fate of the art and the community associated with it suffered greatly under Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party. In the ensuing violence of the reign, many of the finest musicians fled abroad. The U.S.-led invasion did not make matters any safer for musicians, as the fate of those who had remained was uncertain. They risked retribution from fundamentalists opposed to classical music and watched as concert venues were closed down–the community was essentially disbanded before their eyes.
In this hostile environment arose the most improbable of visions. One young musician saw in the ruins of a nation the possibility for growth and inspiration, and she set about building her country’s first youth orchestra. In 2008, the then 17-year-old Zuhal Sultan, a pianist from Baghdad, went about the unstable and unlikely business of recruiting young musicians to form a youth symphony. “I thought it would be great for Iraq to have a youth orchestra that inspires Iraqis but also sets out a positive image about the country, which has been lacking over the past seven years. What else better than music and young people on one stage?” asks Ms. Sultan. Sultan’s dream quickly caught the attention of the British Council in Iraq, which lent its assistance to Sultan and her orchestra, allowing it to gain ground. Scottish conductor Paul MacAlindin also backed the project, helping to audition potential members. Traveling for the audition process, which can seem harrowing enough to young musicians when it simply involves a drive with one’s parents to a sleepy suburban concert hall, was so dangerous that it had to be carried out over the internet and via a phone-video service. Travel in Iraq was too dangerous to allow the usual method of audition. Nevertheless, the applications for membership in the inaugural year numbered over 100.
After the orchestra was founded and got under way, the Scottish MacAlindin found that there were some unique issues to be dealt with when working with the Iraqi youth. Due to the dangerous conditions in so many residential areas around the country, many young musicians were unused to producing much sound, having instead become accustomed to furtive, quiet practicing. Says MacAlindin, “Our trumpeters have taught themselves to hold back….We’re trying to decondition them so that they can play with openness, expression and joy, not fear.” The deconditioning, as MacAlindin phrases it, happens during the rehearsals of the Iraqi National Youth Orchestra–rehearsals which are far from the secure rehearsals to which most Western youth orchestra members are accustomed. “The orchestra is safer in the Kurdish towns in the north of the country, so the first year we rehearsed in Sulaymaniyah, the second time it was Arbela,” Mr. MacAlindin explains. “We’ve never tried to get to Baghdad as it’s still less safe than the north. It’s always an aim to go there, we just don’t know when.”
Rather than making their way to Baghdad this year, the Iraqi National Youth Orchestra has made its way to the United Kingdom. They arrived in Edinburgh to rehearse with members of the Scottish Youth Orchestra, with whom they will perform works by Peter Maxwell Davies and Tchaikovsky. The INYO will accompany British cellist Julian Lloyd-Webber in concerts in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and London. These concerts, the first ever for the group outside their native country, mark a huge step forward, not only for the regrowth of music in Iraq but for the lives of the young musicians of the INYO. Take 19-year-old Dua’a Azzawi, an oboe-player from Baghdad:
“I started playing the oboe when I was nine but I had a teacher who left after almost two years, so then I had to teach myself. In 2006-07, the situation [in Iraq] was very bad. But fortunately an oboe is small. I can store it in a laptop bag, so it was easy to hide. But it’s not easy to hide its sound. So sometimes I had to practice very quietly, because I was living in a very dangerous neighborhood and I was scared that the neighbors might hear. When people asked me what the noise was, I would say it’s just the TV.”
Concertgoers can see this inspirational and extraordinary group of young musicians in Glasgow on August 25th, Edinburgh on August 26th, and London on August 28th.
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