63-minutes conversation between Edward Said and Daniel Barenboim in Weimar (Germany), 1999
Watch the second part: https://youtu.be/hlI__Cogjn0
Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra
Since its inception, EuroArts has a long tradition of producing documentaries about music and the people behind the music. Award-winning films like “BIue Note”, “Gozaran” – “Time Passing” or “El Sistema” have interwoven personal stories with historical and social developments, and have shown the extraordinary passion of musicians reaching tor their loftiest goals in both Iife and art.
For more than two decades, EuroArts has enjoyed a relationship with Maestro Daniel Barenboim. One of my proudest moments as the founder of the company was when director and producer, Paul Smaczny, and ZDF executive, Anca-Monica Pandelea, stepped onto the stage to receive an Emmy® tor the wonderful film “Knowledge is the beginning” about the West-Eastern Divan – a project more than five years in the making.
lt all began in 1996 when during a production Daniel Barenboim told me that he was thinking about doing something to help the situation between Palestine and Israel – he felt that it was important for him to reach out into areas beyond music. What started as a vague idea became clearer after the Maestro’s intense discussions with Edward Said.
Barenboim’s initiative first bore fruit in 1999 – fittingly, in Weimar, as the orchestra that came out of the program was named the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, after a phrase by Goethe. Nobody would have thought, then, that this project, begun as an interesting experiment, would gain worldwide fame as music and peace ambassadors. In a later conversation with Edward Said (this video), Daniel said that he was taken by the fact of how equally talented these young musicians were, despite their very different backgrounds.
EuroArts first produced a short film about the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and then decided to follow up its progress when the project moved to Seville, another historically significant location. Numerous events followed: concerts in Grenada and Geneva we had the pleasure to record for TV and DVD; sad moments when a concert planned for Cairo had to be moved to Italy for political reasons. The orchestra regularly toured around the world and became well known to any lover of classical music. Never, ever was there a moment where music and politics got mixed up – Daniel Barenboim’s determination to create not just a good but excellent orchestra always came first.
The discussions among the musicians – coming from such drastically different backgrounds – proved to be not just interesting for outsiders, but also mind-opening tor everybody on the outside or inside. The orchestra was no melting pot – there was no intention to “change people’s minds” —but, in providing the musicians with a common goal in music, it has done much to heal some of the wounds and to bridge the cultural and political divide. Living together on tour, and sharing a common desire to obtain the best for the orchestra, the musicians found any impulse for fighting kept in check. There were moments of anger as well, when conversations in front of rolling cameras were interrupted and grew into heated discussions. Nevertheless, as soon as it came to making music, it worked. There was one common goal: to play well, to deliver the best possible sound, and – in my humble opinion – to please the Maestro.
Sadly, the second mastermind behind the project, Edward Said, passed away in 2003. Daniel Barenboim decided to carry on and has since only increased the range of activities of the Barenboim-Said-Foundation and of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, which has become a staple of the world’s concert schedules. The Foundation has started a music-oriented kindergarten in Berlin and another in Ramallah. Maestro Barenboim is even planning for a permanent home for his activities in the centre of Berlin close to the Staatsoper. Despite his claims that what he does has nothing to do with politics, Barenboim has been more active in his cause than ever.
All of us at EuroArts would like to wish the best of luck to the orchestra and the Foundation; we are grateful to have been able to produce these wonderful programs. lt is our hope that you will not just enjoy watching them, but will share in our deep appreciation for what the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra truly means.
Bernd Hellthaler (Founder and Chairman of EuroArts Music International GmbH)
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