Yale band plays in Greek migrant camp

Yale band plays in Greek migrant camp

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norman lebrecht

June 02, 2016

yale concert band

Yale, who like to be first, are claiming that their Concert Band’s performance for Afghan and Syrian migrants yesterday at the Eleonas Refugee Camp was the first of its kind.

Be that as it may, it was a good thing to do.

Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director, said: ‘The Yale Concert Band is genuinely grateful for the opportunity to perform exciting, contemplative, exuberant and spiritually uplifting music for audiences throughout Greece. The Concert Band is humbled to have the opportunity to perform at the Eleonas Refugee Camp in Athens. Its residents should not be denied the pleasure of hearing great music, nor this experience with visiting musicians – an experience so different from their daily routines. We hope that our music can help to drown out the sounds of a world gone mad with war.’

 

Comments

  • Holly Golightly says:

    Except that the ‘refugees’ are muslims, very many of whom will adhere to doctrinaire religious principles which do not include music. Don’t think so? Read Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

    • Steven Holloway says:

      Very few muslims regard music in toto as haram. One source does not a scholarly study make, and this is a very complex issue into which you have unwisely dipped a toe. If you wish to pursue it, distinguish between singing and instrumental music; each of those in the sacred and secular spheres; the nature of types of words in lyrics; the purpose of the music, etc., etc., and then explain how each of these applies in each of the numerous strains of Islam. The connection of your comment to the post is tenuous, in any case. If your vague generalization is worth exploring here, and I don’t think it’s the place, you might start by explaining away those symphony orchestras in Iran.

      • Christopher Culver says:

        “and I don’t think it’s the place, you might start by explaining away those symphony orchestras in Iran.”

        Or the lively live-music scene in Aleppo (where a great deal of Syrian refugees were driven to flee by Islamists on one side and Assad’s army on the other) before the war. And in the Levant in general, music is blaring from all around: passing taxis, the televisions in the corner of cafes, a teenager strumming a guitar in the city centre at sunset.

      • Sue says:

        Head meet sand.

        I’m reading an article in today’s “Australian” newspaper entitled “Islamism’s drums beat for demise of Western music”. The essay is written by Ida Lichter who has written a book, “The Secret Magic of Music: Conversations with Musical Masters”.

        Feel free to check this all out on Google.

        Lichter argues, in her essay, that muslims in the UK are increasingly being influenced by radical Islamic clerics and withdrawing their children from school music programs in significant numbers. The rest of her article is extremely distressing to me and ought to make disturbing reading.

        But those advocating the celebration of “beautiful diversity” won’t for a second want to hear any counter arguments. As usual, it’s the rest of us who have to cop the garbage.

        • Max Grimm says:

          But those advocating the celebration of “beautiful diversity” won’t for a second want to hear any counter arguments.
          I’ve come to find that an unwillingness or inability to hear let alone accept any counter arguments is often a universal trait, spanning the entire political spectrum and coursing through many if not most of the world’s religions.

  • Cyril Blair says:

    Holly won’t stop beating that ugly and nonfactual drum. As if Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the first and last word on all things Muslim.

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