In their own destruction is a bit complicated especially for Classical Music so many talented musicians. But there are no so many possibilities to look to perform work to watch live concerts and as i have like it from live musicians and my father is a composer who told me if its what you want to do then you need to leave. When i heard about it i can live i dont really. Wow such opportunity and i always wanted to to do Something Else it was to study so literature to study always always and when i saw that link you know visit to work and there and it was no question that im not going there. I have been on stage for 64 years now i played my 1st concert in 195050. I hope art learned something in all those years and id like to pass that on i think. I am sure its one step in a vision i have long held. Here. To have this center where musicians from all over the middle east can learn to communicate with one another through music common experience your. Diac i mean this academy is slightly different with a program to counter specialize ation in the balance 0. The interest said what saeed used to say a specialist is someone who knows more and more about less and less on that and i believe that this problem is not limited to musicians but affects all of society essential. Thank. You. The idea started for having an academy where musicians would also study philosophy that was the that was the idea and that was how i heard of it shortly thereafter i met with mr barron boy and immediately it was clear that we share these 8 years that its a terrible shame that Classical Musicians nowadays specialize so much and dont get to reflect more broadly about what they do in and around themselves in the broader culture so it was clear that we could Work Together and tried to to remedy that and it was clear that that this was going to work. You. Know was very interesting because it was the 1st time seeing a program. More. Than just music and i was always interested in more things but never had really the time to expand or. To really learn them. And that if they just. Barely and i got excepted for their. This was humid air force one for don it has always been Daniel Barenboim streams to have an academy where students are educated his way that. Full that he challenges every musician to acquire a universal Education One to keep on learning and to see the bigger picture. Of. You when youre. On it very. Heartening and makes me happy that hes responding like that i cry since i dont play an instrument i cant. It feels good. Im surprised how how much how nice the windows are i was worried about them it feels like a connection to the city which is right because this is not a. And out next period concert hall id prefer morning here to say all or something. Every academy needs a home. But this is the only academy with a hole like this one that we were lucky because frank gehry turned out to be a fan of the west east and devalued his truck with. Ok when i told him that this idea was becoming reality he said. I really want to do this this and i said mr careless because we werent friends yet again mr gary you are probably the worlds greatest architect we cant afford it so he replied this is how could you say that for you to be able to work for the west east and divan orchestra and for this academy he used to be im the one who should bankers minds and. He did everything for free it was an amazing gift this persecution. Of the 1st model so i did were like a smaller version of a big concert hall any danios lying on a spectrum you must be in pain and he said but frank why are you doing that what happened to those other sketches ship. And i should well theyre not for sr theyre not normal they dont you. You dont ask frank gehry to build a conventional concert or a no point in going to be the only point in doing that. And they really overalls. That was a kind of intuitive thing i intuitively made him i didnt know why it felt right for the room but he was dismissing them because i didnt have enough experience to know that the musicians could you know could make it work. Time yourself to diagnose at that frank gehry its 1st draft of the concert hall was to traditional for his liking so it was a kind of box. The hoffman finger. And then gary started drawing that big bang spiral which became the 1st draft for the of lip tickle concert hall of the barenboim saeed academy. So its hard to believe but its true. I was all for it and ripped the page straight out of his notes because i i. I. The 1st year was just across in their parlance street we were living people students from. The region it was very exciting because we were like a small family very fast we became really good friends. Yeah and then one year after we moved here of course 25. 00 more students arrive and it started to feel more like an academy with many people all and be serious and around 20 something people so now its a real functioning academy so its really nice to see how it feels to such an institution. To travel to israel palestine lebanon jordan and egypt to recruit. To find students to hold auditions to tell them about the academy. And we have about now i think close to 80 percent of our student body is all from the middle east from malawi some of the africa which is something im very proud of because that is the primary. A sort of remit of this institution its one of our primary objectives. There are certainly. Very hard to beat. What the right. Mind would has been every saturday and then and then im what im meant by accident after a hotel in london i believe it was 992. When he came up to me and said you dont know me mr barenboim im edward sayit. I replied with never met but i know very well who you walk with. A lot he laughed and we talked for a while and then i said im sorry but i have to go have a rehearsal yes he said can i wait for you certainly i replied i would love to continue our conversation so. I believe that was in june 1902 if im not mistaken. We spoke almost every day almost every day until his death. Whether he was in japan and i was in berlin or he was in the u. S. And i was in one as i didnt matter. That connection meant a lot to both of us. It was only a couple of years later that they began to discuss projects. First actually and what was very keen that then your visit the west bank he said why dont you visit it why dont you see how it is on the other side. Than here all the way this was thinking we have to do something for our people and of course it was a good with that. The opportunity came for the west to become a reality. Was. I mean its not often that you find scholars that are so deeply interested in music and musicians that are so deeply interested in film sophie and so they had an immediate connection at that level and of course because of their backgrounds one being by identity palestinian of course educated in an angloamerican environment in in egypt and then. On the United States for edward sayed and for bound by most of his life he did not live in israel but he had a clear jewish and israeli. Strands in his background and both of them are humanists so both of them see the concerns. Of the contemporary middle east through their own lens as well as through the lens of a broader a broader perspective i think they wanted others to be able to enjoy this type of this type of encounter in this cap. Connection that they had this shouldnt be a privilege just the fuel that everyone should be able to connect with that. One of the things ever said about this project. Through this project the language of music that we teach these Young Students and the 2nd musicians to think differently they will be thinking in alternative ways and trying to break that so thats how i see it looking beyond seeing the situation were in always in alternative ways. If i told you that no from the beginning i went there one of the conversations probably die that it would be a life of course i went for the special musical experience but then once there i am proud to ask myself the question is a good questions. Order but questions also about the situation there and then they restarted to talk with friends i started to know so many things about others about the differences about and how to how to connect and help understand the differences of the other. Get. The west in certain define a damn program which i groomed and was as a musician and watching so closely with. Maestro band one and me such an amazing musicians. Experience seems unbelievable its it is the highest level love of music making. And when you share it with such an amazing musicians that truly become such good friends of yours and people that in other situation you will never make it i will never have their option to play neckline and session with danny ronnie and try and i think stand there and try to tease and. Meeting one of the most and he financing experiences. Its now the orchestra goes on to us from the salzburg festival to the lucerne festival in london promised to the sold out valbuena in berlin it wasnt like that before things were still developing opened it. Up in i was already playing with the divine in 2000 when edward site was still alive when he came by and talked to the musicians through them with the relationship between him and my father was the roots of the west eastern divide us so thats how it came about and the academy is basically a continuation of that idea which is a view. We are looking at a world that has a lot of discontinuity its problems with building up walls and shutting people off and a lot of unfortunate a kind of under taking any kind of. Subversion of the critical and philosophical a. D. s that the western intellectual world had inherited from the enlightenment on part that music is a universal language that means the same thing to everybody or fortunately speak to everybody. What better way to figure out what music me its meant to do it in a project such as one has the west you sort of honor and eventually the back and say to. The prophet hi im so that to make music is to become one old come together and stay permanently connected. I wanted that from the stocks as the. Yes thats why theres the philosophy i call it the thinking thinking that. We created this curriculum linking the music that they play to other aspects of context and content but the original subject was music and philosophy. But as soon as we developed it into a Larger Program we realized that that philosophy was one angle of humanities. Plato where as you are such a smart philosopher plato student i want to learn what is the human being and i want to learn is there such a thing as truth and if plato were not plato but someone else he might say well let me tell you after you die this is what happens to yourself and the research of thing called truth and out of the philosopher know it and these are the things you need to know if you come to my school 5 times a week i will teach you the truth he could do that but instead he says there was a cave imagine imagine this cave what do you think. He takes this route why would a philosopher take the time to write so many so many details when he could just tell us were in the dark. In terms of what the musical world demands it doesnt seem to be necessary to have this broader education why is it that they should care about her colliders or cart or marks or. Instead of just playing for another hour but the potential of music is kind of limited when musicians limit themselves to technical skill and performance. We want to correct a tendency and to say youre missing the point if youre just playing it. For for for music sake so to speak theres a whole dimension that is that is lost. Thanks so much pascal. Thinking is fun its like exercise for the brain and water and through these texts and the philosophers we learn on an emotional level of america we get to know ourselves better because we ask ourselves more questions that we have of was when to have asked. And we get to know each other because we express our views in class and on my own is how that. Is for i have found its hugely enriching for a musician because when you play you often have to recreate various emotions but you also need your brain to understand and analyze the pieces in kafataris to consider stance on a museum. For instance lets say ive never felt lonely because ive always been around people just. Fun to find some kind of peace speaks of deep loneliness and then i can recreate that because ive read about it in books or i can imagine it was fashion. In. 2. I come from a known musical family so i dont know how actually i got it probably i saw it on t. V. Or something and i was really interested in violin and i just said to my parents i want to study the violin and there it of course teaches they try to find their teacher then and here we are in berlin. 2. Theres. Always the finger. First time i met i swam the more. He came to another through the conservatory and and i played for him a small piece then. Off there feeling was i met him again in Jerusalem Festival he was incredibly charming hes very young and very lively super human are never in the fields and he said to me to me my throat when i play in the in the orchestra i would truly love to if she were fiame to me there he said but youre too young youre still 11 he said and thats a bit out of that he said if it helps i can also say im 21 if i was i if its on to. Dance man i knew that this is an element from unfinished and the next summer i was there. Were hard not sure you man have cause most of our students are from the region regular middle east palestinians israelis syrians egyptians. Cant like the west east and began it is not a project for peace fully that one bring peace this is a humanitarian project money for your kind which is not a political project and were not trying to push any political opinion refers open gooses it. Must be allergic to east does what we want is for them to learn to listen to other peoples views. And maybe even understand without necessarily agreeing with me that its is it. That is exactly. The working with these students who come from the middle east who would not be able to study together in the middle east you could not have. A person from tel aviv and a person from syria sitting in the same classroom anywhere over there. Working with these people has really allows me to feel like im in some way connected to the realities of the region even though im not there. And that. I find a channel through which i feel in doing something even if its not necessarily immediately visible and even if its not political activism it feels like in some way. My work is relevant to that reality. Theres so much to say about. The hitler youth books and bring them here in the middle of the square authors who are writing in ways that were seen as anti german or degenerate yeah this is the term the nazis used to generate art its a bit stuffy the surface its hard to see inside but i invite you to take a look down there in the inside the hall there and see what you see. This is something that occupies me a lot. Well in today and in jewish history and the current conflict in the middle east and how these things somehow. Are in and one going conversation these particular identities and you know the jerusalem is now the place where the wall is now there is a wall in jerusalem we are here now taking our students through berlin and talking about how walls dont last. Just this image seeing students from the middle east here in berlin where survival is not an issue where identities can be negotiated where you feel free to connect with another through music and through song heart is just liberating and. And beautiful yeah c. When edward died and with died suddenly they came to me and they said if you want this project to continue you have to be involved as a family. It does it wouldnt work of that it was. There when right you know if i if we did not. Participate that the essence of the project the idea of both sides coming together that were not to be there with daniel by himself. And then the project would become Something Else completely. So i thought its better that it continue the way it is because the message is spot for. I would like to formally introduce you to your audience i think it is to read a book that would. I need and is the name sake of the building here so the barenboim side effect cademy you all remember 200 so you to pray to so that when we think of others what do you think that means as an idea. What is an other. Theres. The others side. With this. The other was 1st used in homers iliad wish to describe the true sions who are the non greeks they were the other we are the greatest we are the center of civilization we are handsome and we smell good which ones the basic sort of tenets of morality means increase and the treasuries are just these barbarians who live across the sea and thats where the true other entered into the lexicon of western intellectual history and this is how it works i. E. Uses the term other in the context of his work in his work humanism takes on a particular. Relational they mention. And not simply. Given ism in the sense of developing my potential. My skills my knowledge but humanism in the sense of allowing a connection where previously they may not have been or. You know the question of a different human difference. And whether that notion of difference can extend to very large collectivity such as west to east to orient an author. Is something about which im very doubtful theres nobody for example who doesnt believe in the idea of human freedom or Human Dignity or compassion or human for eternity or love or whatever you want to call i mean to me its much more interesting and impressive how cultures you know constant be feeding each other across what are supposed to be lines of demarcation and to me are in fact lines of coexistence and complementarity and and can a point which is the word i use from almost from you know music. I mean were trying to break down its walls were trying to look at the walls of ideologies and political Systems Build find a way to bulldoze right through them to. To bring them down to through music and art and and expression i mean this actually a fantastic story in the Old Testament about the wall of jericho being brought down by the by the blaring horns of trumpets i mean thats a great analogy for trying to accomplish here. What you just learn it is how much you are similar that. There is no. Monster on the other side. They want what you want. We mainly are villainous and we speak about our daily lives here and we create friendships doesnt have anything to do with the place you were born in piecing the fact that we are all coming to do it means that already there is one thing that is common for all of us and not on the music which is a big common field. Shorts was a very just seeing how in the orchestra in the t. Bone when an israeli plays a solo oboe or clarinet or whatever everyone is happy and wants them to do well or newish to their says ma skip kind under there is no other moment in life right now when an israeli wants the best for a pale