The new League of Arab States

A group of 85 Arab youth travelling from different parts of the Arab world have succeeded to play in harmony impressing everyone by their professionalism, sensuality and unity at their concerts held in Syria, Germany and Algeria.

 Although there are several youth orchestras, this is the first pan-Arab orchestra, and it includes musicians from 11 Arab countries.

“This is a new league of Arab states,” said the ambassador of Yemen describing the Arab Youth Philharmonic Orchestra (AYPO) after attending its concert in Germany 2007.

“I thought the idea of the Arab orchestra could do what the politics has failed to do in uniting the Arab world,” said Fawzy El-Shamy the founder and the manager of AYPO and professor of the Academy of Arts, Cairo.

AYPO is a “dream” of El-Shamy. Its idea was born from El-Shamy thinking of many youth orchestras, like the Bremen International Youth Orchestra, the West-East Divan Youth Orchestra of Daniel Barenboim, and others.

 Why not, he thought, create a youth orchestra of Arabs?

During 2004, El-Shamy discussed the idea with several music institutes, which agreed to the approach. El-Shamy travelled throughout the Arab world, holding auditions at conservatories, and selected “the best students” from all over the Arab world.

 Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordon, Tunisia, Algeria, Palestine, Sudan and Kuwait are the Arab countries rooting members participating in AYPO.

On the other side, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen are the only Arab countries not participating in the orchestra.

 “There are no musical institutions in Saudi Arabia,” said El-Shamy explaining why this country is out of his music note. “Also, the musical institutions at Yemen and United Arab Emirates are very poor,” he added.

 AYPO has started its concerts in 2006 performing one season a year stated El Shamy. He also asserted that all orchestras do the same thing.

 El-Shamy wished to perform the first concert in Egypt, but things did not work out. Financial as well as cultural problems hindered the concert from taking place in Egypt.

 Accordingly he turned his head to Syria. The Cultural Minister, Prof. Dr.Riyad Nassan Agha was impressed with the idea of the Arab Orchestra and said that it is their honor to host the first season of AYPO. 

 Permanent sponsors of AYPO are the University of Gutenberg in Sweden and the Swedish International Development and Cooperation Agency (SIDA).

 Moreover, the Ministry of Culture of Syria, the German Academic Exchange Service in addition to the Ministry of Culture of Algeria have financially supported the orchestra only during its performance on their land.

 Their first concert, which took place in Damascus at the height of the Israeli war on Lebanon, was described by Professor El-Shamy as an expression of solidarity with the Lebanese people. Accordingly, the orchestra donated the income of the concert to support war sufferers.

 Meanwhile their second concert in Damascus took place in the beautiful Dar al Asad Opera House. The program there included works by a Lebanese composer Marcel Khalifa, an Egyptian composer Gamal Abdul Rahi, and the 8th Symphony of Antonin Dvorak.

In 2007, AYPO season two was held in Germany celebrating the anniversary of the death of the great composer Robert Schumann. The orchestra presented its European premier at Bonn University with a program including a modern piece of Arab music composed in the Classical style as well as the European classics.

 AYPO German’s season gave a professional image of the Arabs. “It emphasized that the Arabs are united and are opened to other cultures,” El-Shamy said proudly.

 Algeria’s National theatre was the place hosting the AYPO third season in November 2008. The minister of culture paid accommodation as well as internal transportation expenses.

 

 The concert was a great success.

 El-Shamy said happily, “twelve local newspapers in addition to two international newspapers have covered our concert.”

 The eighty five members meet yearly in the place where their season is planned to rehearse together for a period of two to three weeks for nine continuous hours. To ensure professional performance as well as reducing rehearsal period, “the music notes are sent to each member to work on it individually before their gathering,” El-Shamy said.

 Several attempts were made by the Arabs to present arts in pan Arab  groups, one the most famous works is the popular song El-Helm Al-Arabi.

Both are composed of a big number of artists presenting music. However the orchestra can’t perform unless all its members are working together at the same time and at the same place. While El-Helm Al-Arabi song is recorded, each singer could sing his part from his country and all parts be added together.

AYPO prepares young musicians for their professional career. Some students quit the orchestra as they graduate from college to concentrate in their profession.

 The success of AYPO shed the light on the hope that the Youth are more tolerant and more capable of Arab unity than the political leaders or the elder generation.

 “My dream has not been fully fulfilled yet because the orchestra still needs more media coverage on the national and the international level,” El-Shamy said hoping that the coming years bring appreciation to such great efforts which combines arts and politics with humanity.

Is it time to close the door?

 

Two years ago as she stepped into her job interview, saw a confident overwhelming single man. “God! What a gentleman?” she thought. Few days later she was working with him in the office, weeks later they became friends and months later they became the “perfect couple.” She was living the happiest days of her life thinking that she has found the Mr. Right.  Gradually heaven turned to hell and he broke up with her. Five months later he was back with the most romantic surprise and all the sorry cards, gifts, flowers, messages and everything to win her heart back. Her mother said no, her best friend said no way and people who really cared were afraid, but she agreed and they got engaged. Three months later, she broke up seeing all the problems repeating themselves. The hope is not able to change neither him nor her.  Now she is in the phase of “I still love him,” “we can solve our problems.”

This relationship has not survived more than a couple of months, do you think ok worth reconsidering? Is it right to pull back in relationships with so many problems?  When to draw the line and never look back again?  The answer is very important to each one of us because so many people lose years of their lives trying to work out an illusion.

Case by case

Relationships issues are a case by case scenario, nothing is concrete, but statistics show that relationships with many breaks usually don’t work. The case where it might work: when the failure was unrelated to your attraction or personalities but caused by outside circumstances. Absent such extenuating circumstances, analyze what went wrong the first time, assume a similar dynamic will arise again, and then determine whether that dynamic is feasible in your current life.

Problems between couples may result from external factors or internal ones, may result from communication problems or character conflicts and above all change of one side.

In a relationship two souls unite together to share their lives aiming for a better life. Each one has his own desires and dreams. Also each one has his own unique characteristics split between what is nice and what is bad. When two are in love and committed they agree that they’ve accepted each other fully. But there are characters which are if found any of the couple, usually destroy it all.

Selfishness

Selfishness is on the top of the list. When your couple is selfish, you’ll be living a life of “me, me, and me” all the time. Your life would have to revolve around his needs, desires, moods and everything. Imagine you have wrote down all your conversations in a note, then took of “me, mine, I’m,” from it, the book would be left empty. Selfish people plan for themselves, cry on themselves and also feel happy only for themselves. If you have not succeeded to change your couple till now and living in hell, it is better to turn your head away.

Honesty

The back bone of successful relationships is honesty, respect and love. Couples lean on those characters in their hardships. They help couples go on.  Usually, honesty problems lead to disrespect and disrespect throws love away. Draw the line when you have a serious honesty problem. If your loved one lies in small issues, be sure he would lie in big ones. If he is neither straight forward nor clear, better stop there immediately.

Love the Soul

The deepest and everlasting love is the love of the soul and not the body nor the style nor the feeling of love itself. If your loved one does not see your true value which lies within you and not outside, then a dangerous bell rings here. Simply, all other things may change or vanish.  Your body changes as you grow older, you could not be in style every second of your life and the feeling of love he feels with you, he might witness a similar one with someone else. The soul is the only one which lasts forever and stays as it is.

Same Track?

The capstone of all the above is if your loved one has switched tracks. If he is no more the one you promised to continue your life with, draw the line. A mission and a concrete set of values guide people in their lives. In most cases couples agree on those things before they commit. They may have neither agreed directly nor have said them out loud but deep inside they know they are taking the same road. When one change, the gap enlarges, communication system breaks down because each of you would be speaking the language of his values and mission.

Be careful to be fully aware of yourself before entering a mature relationship. Explore yourself. Know what you really want to do with your life, because you may end up being the one who closed the door or had the door closed before him.

New French Internet Downloading Law

i read an article in the cnn about the new french intenet downloading law. where they say that the goverment would moniter people’s activity on the internet, and if they were found out to download music or movies without paying for them they would get a warning then they would cut their internet connection after three warning. they could be deprived of using the internet for a whole year !!!!!!!!!!!

ok i agree that this is important for the copyright issue, when i imagine some1 using my work without my permission i get so angry. but on the other hand, we arent kids anymore, the govermnet shouldnt monitor our interent activity. where is the privacy? where is the freedom?

then this system would then go to anotheor level where people get jailed for chatting about illegal issues or blogging about cencord community.

what is awful about this digital world is that it is still controlled and the goverment could just moniter every breath we do online.