BERLIN, Nov 12 — More than 25 years since its founding by star conductor Daniel Barenboim, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra’s mission to foster dialogue in the Middle East endures — including among its own members.
“Our message of peace must be louder than ever,” Barenboim, who formed the ensemble alongside US-Palestinian intellectual Edward Said in 1999, told AFP ahead of a week-long festival celebrating the organisation in Berlin.
The event aims to share the orchestra’s work with an “even larger audience,” said the 83-year-old, an Argentine-Israeli citizen who was granted Palestinian nationality in 2008, via email.
The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra has long brought together around 100 musicians from Israel, the Palestinian Territories and Arab states, seeking to promote understanding through a shared love of classical music.
