In October 2018 I made another trip to Palestine with my quintet, the Folkwang International Ensemble, to perform in and around Bethlehem. In this video I bundled a few impressions from our time their. The concert program was inspired by a poem of the famous Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish and we collaborated with the local children’s choir Amwaj Choir and the actor Mohammed Abu Laban. We also spend an afternoon teaching in the local music school Sounds of Palestine. Our experiences were very enriching and our audiences very diverse.
This trip is the foundation of an annual festival we are planning to set up from next year in Bethlehem. We’ve made some valuable contacts and found a few beautiful locations. We are looking forward to continue this journey.
On our blog Folkwang International Ensemble, we wrote about our experiences during our recent project and will be posting updates, once the festival is starting up.