The Palestine Youth Orchestra, founded in 2004 by Suhail Khoury, has conducted a Northern European tour that ended on 17 August 2019. The tour included concerts in Oslo, Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam. The Orchestra’s repertoire includes classics such as Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet: Overture-Fantasy and Bizet’s Carmen Suites, as well as traditional Arabic songs. ‘Palestinian Rhapsody’ by Faris Badarneh also premiered this year.
Members of the orchestra range from fourteen to twenty-six years old and they come from Palestine and other parts of the Arab world. With the orchestra they hope to show a different side of Palestinian culture from what is commonly seen in the media and according to viola player Lyan Najim, “People sometimes say that PYO shows the ‘other’ side of being Palestinian, but I think it shows the main image of being Palestinian: we are open-minded, we have dreams, we have potential, and we aspire to be equal.”
Travel restrictions have made it difficult for some members to attend rehearsals in the past and to rectify the issue, sessions are sometimes conducted via Skype. The orchestra usually meets a week before a tour to rehearse and this year, they chose to do so in Oslo because it is a neutral locale.
Suhail Khoury says that funding restraints and ‘the constant battle over visas and travel permits’ will continue to be a challenge and that his main aim is to simply keep the Palestine Youth Orchestra going for as long as possible. However, he also states that the orchestra’s success has become a source of pride and hope for the musicians’ families, as well as for Palestinians around the world.
