UPDATE: APRIL 2008:
Dear Friends ,
What does reconciliation really mean? Resolution of conflict and differences between people, races, cultures? I am very much affected by this word. And for my own vision of humanity its one element I try to practice in my life. After all, why else would an American Jew be the conductor of a Polish and Swiss orchestra, have a child with a German woman and commission Iraqi and Arab composers? I am not alone in feeling that music can say what words cannot. That it can contribute a verse to life´s powerful play, as Whitman once said. And recent events have made me feel closer to this word than ever.
I recently conducted the New Haifa Symphony in Haifa, Israel, an extraordinary city where Jews, Arabs and Christian all live together in an integrated community. It is not segregated like Jerusalem. It is not living in fear, despite previous bombings during the Israeli-Lebanese war. It is a modern day Toledo. And nestled on the hill of Mt. Carmel is the Ba'Hai Gardens, a Utopian oasis symbolizing its multi-cultural belief of unity and individual rights and respect. The religion, like the city itself, is living testimony to the idea and practice of reconciliation. The orchestra played with heart and soul, with full Mediterranean passion. I felt so at ease with them, so at peace, that I began to realize how important it is to put reconciliation into practice every day.
From Haifa, I went to its sister city in Germany: Mainz. The Staatsorchester is a group of wonderful musicians who commit themselves to reconcile the differences of the political landscape in the region and, despite budget cutbacks and consolidations of area orchestras, they still make music at the highest artistic level. I only wish all orchestras could be so open to reconciliation for the benefit of itself and its public.
And soon I will be in Philadelphia, the city of Brotherly love, where reconciliation is its motto. The famous phrase from Schiller, made famous by Beethoven's "Ode to Joy:" All Men Are Brothers, should be first and foremost in the minds of its citizens. Why? Should not reconciliation apply to political parties? And candidates?
I have the privilege to conduct the fabulous Philadelphians, playing the "Kaddish" Symphony, from Bernstein, with Sam Pisar's new text, a work I recorded in Luzern and will also perform in May in Paris. This symphony in both text and music has a message of hope, of reconciliation between all the races and cultures on our fragile planet, our common home we call Earth, so that catastrophes like the Holocaust may never happen again. I could not ask for a better place to perform this music, along with Korngold´s Symphony in F#, than in this City of Brotherly Love.
I am not a politician. Politics are about compromise; music is not. But I hope that the political candidates on April 22 will avoid conflict and embrace the spirit of reconciliation to find ways to restore the hope and love that all Brothers share. We are here, we exist, and we cannot do it alone or apart. That's what makes an orchestra special. That's what makes a country great. It could mean the difference in all our lives. To continue Whitman: "The Question: O, me! So sad, recurring. What good amid these? O, Me! O, Life! Answer: That you are here. That Life exists and identity. That the powerful play goes on, And you may contribute a verse."
